NAME: SAMUEL J. PALMISANO AGE: 55 DESIGNATION: Chairman and CEO COMPANY: IBM Corporation

Sam Palmisano, who was on his fourth visit to India last fortnight, joined IBM straight out of John Hopkins University at the age of 22, and has spent his entire 33-year career with the company which was still called International Business Machines those days. A key lieutenant of Louis V. Gertsner, the legendary CEO of IBM who preceded Palmisano and turned IBM around from a loss-making monolith into a nimble and, some might argue, ferocious it solutions supplier, who in his biography Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? described Palmisano thus: "He has an emotional, 24-hour-a-day attachment to winning and to achieving ever-increasing levels of success."

In 1998, Palmisano was appointed Senior Vice-President and Group Executive of IBM Global Services just as IBM was switching over from its traditional business of selling hardware to becoming a turnkey supplier of outsourcing solutions. This was a logical step for Palmisano who had played a critical role in several subsidiaries of IBM that provided outsourcing solutions such as Integrated Systems Solutions Corporation (ISSC), where he was President. ISSC was eventually merged into IBM Global Services. Under him, IBM Global Services became the most profitable and prominent face of IBM, and it was not surprising that he became the company's CEO in 2003. In fact, Palmisano signed the dotted line a couple of years ago when IBM sold off its personal computer division to Lenovo of China. Palmisano also played a critical role in turning IBM into one of the largest multinationals to function out of India. Not only does India provide the backbone for several of IBM's key outsourcing contracts, but thanks to the revolutionary deal with Bharti Airtel, India is also a key market for it. And Palmisano's frequent visits to India are representative of how seriously the company treats the country.

-Kushan Mitra