Brenda Harvey (IBM)
After just over two years as IBM’s general manager for Asia Pacific, Brenda Harvey is departing from the role, making way for Paul Burton, former IBM executive and ex-CEO at Mastech Infotrellis, to step into the top regional job.
IBM revealed its appointment of Harvey as general manager of Asia Pacific in January 2020, following the resignation of Harriet Green. The appointment saw Harvey, who was previously general manager of Public Sector for IBM in the United States, relocate to Singapore from New York.
The departure of Harvey, who is now set to return to the US to take up a senior role within IBM, sees Burton take on the responsibility for all strategic and operational matters related to IBM's sales, marketing, services and delivery operations across Asia Pacific.
Burton’s geographical remit incudes Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Korea, India and the greater China region, including Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Additionally, Burton has been tasked with playing a critical role in enabling IBM’s capabilities across its global centres of excellence and research and innovation labs in the Asia Pacific region.
Burton joins IBM from Mastech Infotrellis, an IBM Global Elite Partner and the data and analytics business unit of US-based IT services group Mastech Digital, where he was CEO. As CEO of Mastech Infotrellis, Burton oversaw the expansion of the company’s global footprint while adding new and differentiated service offerings to its technology stack.
Burton previously worked at IBM earlier in his career, during which time he held several leadership roles in the US and Asia, working across IBM’s software and consulting businesses. He has also logged tenures at Genpact and Hewlett-Packard.
“After several years away from IBM, I return to a distinctly different company, both in terms of its portfolio and ability to deliver value to clients that continue to be impacted by digitisation and effects of the pandemic,” Burton said.
“The IBM of today has been refocused around two primary sources of client value: technology and business expertise, while the entire portfolio has been reoriented around the two most transformational technologies of our time: hybrid cloud and AI [artificial intelligence].
"I’m both energised and excited by the opportunity to bring this value to our clients,” he added.
The appointment comes at the tail end of a period of change at IBM, with Kyndryl, the business entity formerly known as IBM’s Managed Infrastructure Services unit, being officially spun off from the mothership in early November last year, after more than twelve months of planning.
