Lou Gerstner

Louis Vincent Gerstner Jr. (March 1, 1942 – December 27, 2025) was an American businessman, best known for his tenure as chairman and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 until 2002, when he retired as CEO in March and chairman in December. He is largely credited with turning IBM's fortunes around. Lou Gerstner was the chairman of Gerstner Philanthropies. Gerstner was also CEO of RJR Nabisco, and held senior positions at American Express and McKinsey & Company. He was a graduate of Chaminade High School (1959), Dartmouth College (1963), and held an MBA from the Harvard Business School (1965). He was chairman of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and was chairman emeritus of the board of the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Gerstner was the author of Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, about IBM's transformation; and co-author of the book Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America's Public Schools.