Akers to Succeed Opel as Chairman of IBM in June

L.A. Times Archives

March 26, 1986 12 AM PT

From a Times Staff Writer

John R. Opel, 61, will retire on June 1 as chairman of International Business Machines. His successor will be John F. Akers, who will also continue as president and chief executive of the world’s largest computer maker, the company said Tuesday.

Opel, in turn, will replace Frank T. Cary as chairman of the board’s executive committee. Cary, Opel’s predecessor as president, chief executive and chairman of IBM, will remain on as a director and a member of the executive committee.

Opel became president of the company in 1974 and added the chief executive’s title in mid-1981. He undertook an aggressive growth campaign for the company that analysts said was aided by Cary’s carefully laid foundation.

Opel’s retirement comes after 37 years with IBM, the last three as its chairman. His withdrawal from management reflects an orderly succession that analysts say will result in few significant changes at the monolithic company.

“I don’t read anything into the change. It’s a case of saying ‘OK, everybody stand up, shift one chair to the left and sit back down,’ ” said Thomas Crotty, who follows IBM for the Gartner Group in Stamford, Conn. “It’s the way things have gone at IBM, and the way I expect they’ll go in the future.”

However, the change comes at a time when IBM is facing increasing pressures from its competitors in a relatively stagnant marketplace. Akers, 51, faces the difficult task of trying to exact growth for the company, which now posts sales of more than $50 billion annually, from an environment that is less favorable to IBM than in bygone days.

Akers, a 26-year-veteran of IBM, became its president and chief executive in February, 1985. Among his advantages are comparative youth. He is almost nine years shy of 60--the age when IBM requires its chief executives to relinquish that position to a younger man. ‘He’s young and will provide some continuity,” Crotty said.

Akers, an outgoing man with an engaging smile, previously has said he intends to improve the public face of IBM.