IBM

Lou Gerstner

CEO who rescued IBM in the 1990s

1942 – 2025

John Cocke

IBM researcher who invented RISC computer architecture

1925 – 2002

Jean E. Sammet

Programming-language pioneer who helped design COBOL

1928 – 2017

Grady Booch

Software engineer who co-created the Unified Modeling Language

Born 1955

Gene Amdahl

IBM System/360 architect and author of Amdahl’s law

1922 – 2015

John Backus

IBM engineer who led the creation of Fortran, the first widely used high-level language

1924 – 2007

Thomas J. Watson

Salesman who built IBM into a business-machine giant

1874 – 1956

Herman Hollerith

Inventor of the punched-card tabulating machine and founder of a company that became IBM

1860 – 1929

Ginni Rometty

First woman to lead IBM

Born 1957

Fred Brooks

IBM System/360 manager and author of The Mythical Man-Month

1931 – 2022

Frances Allen

IBM compiler pioneer and the first woman to win the Turing Award

1932 – 2020

Edgar F. Codd

IBM researcher who invented the relational model behind modern databases

1923 – 2003

Arvind Krishna

Indian-American chairman and CEO of IBM

Kenneth E. Iverson

Canadian computer scientist who created the APL programming language

1920 – 2004

Thomas J. Watson Jr.

IBM president who led the company into the computer age

1914 – 1993

Howard Aiken

Harvard physicist who conceived the Harvard Mark I computer

1900 – 1973