Red Hat announced that it has named Paul Cormier as president and chief executive officer of Red Hat, effective now. Cormier, who previously served as Red Hat’s president of Products and Technologies, succeeds Jim Whitehurst, who is now president of IBM.
Cormier is credited with pioneering the subscription model that transformed Red Hat from an open source “disruptor” to an enterprise technology company, moving Red Hat Linux from a freely downloadable operating system to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the industry’s leading enterprise Linux platform that today powers more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 organisations.
Cormier has driven more than 25 acquisitions at Red Hat, moving the company beyond its Linux roots and helped create a modern IT stack based on open source.
Cormier said: “When I joined Red Hat, it would have been impossible to predict how Linux and open source would change our world, but they are truly everywhere. The transformations I see happening in our industry are exciting, as they present new challenges and opportunities. The opportunity for Red Hat has never been bigger than it is today and I am honoured to lead the company to help our customers solve their challenges and to keep Red Hat at the forefront of innovation.”
Cormier has created industry-changing partnerships, including a landmark partnership with Microsoft to bring broader choice to hybrid cloud deployments, it is claimed. He has been instrumental in Red Hat’s structural combination with IBM, focused on scaling and accelerating Red Hat while maintaining its independence and neutrality.
During his tenure at Red Hat, Whitehurst oversaw Red Hat’s expansion and increasing influence across the technology industry including growing revenue from more than $500 million to almost $3 billion for the company’s 2018 fiscal year, as well as the acquisition of Red Hat by IBM for $34 billion in 2019. Under his leadership, Red Hat was named to Forbes’ list of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” six times and added to Fortune’s list of the Most Admired Companies in 2019 and 2020. In addition to his new role as president of IBM, Whitehurst becomes chairman of Red Hat, succeeding Arvind Krishna, who is now CEO of IBM.
