At a first glance, Linda Sanford looks like any other businesswoman: congenial, well-spoken, and professional. However, the petite lady dressed in blue who stood in front of Stevens students, alumni, and working business professionals is actually the Senior Vice-President of IBM in Enterprise Transformation. She is responsible for working across IBM to transform core business processes, create an IT infrastructure to support and integrate processes globally, and help create a culture that fosters innovation. This past Wednesday, The Provost’s Lectuer Series on Women Leadership had Ms. Sanford come and lecture on the “transformative leader” and provide strategies for leading in times of change.
After Provost Korfiatis’ warm introduction, Sanford provided the audience with some additional information regarding her background. As one of five girls raised on a potato farm (all of whom have pursed math and science fields), Sanford was raised on the idea that “if you work hard, anything is possible.” Her first project: the electric typewriter; since her beginnings with IBM in 1975, she has accomplished much throughout her career. During the 1990s, Ms. Sanford guided the S/390 Division through one of the most comprehensive and successful product transformations the computer industry has ever seen, reinventing S/390 as an open, enterprise-level server.
Sanford then moved on to running sales, which she said taught her a valuable lesson. “If you’re going to be relevant to [the customer], you need to be willing to change what you have to meet [the customer’s] needs.”
If anyone has been able to harness the potential from the idea of change, it is Ms. Sanford. She spoke of the three “shifts” that IBM has invested in understanding to better the company. Data, cloud demands, and systems of engagement are being harnessed as means of gaining insight, determining solutions, and producing a more efficient corporation.
Ms. Sanford, clearly an influential leader at IBM, discussed how the changes in technology and industry call for different types of leaders. She spoke of “T-shaped qualities” that have a deep core, such as in a particular engineering discipline, but also include auxiliary skills such as communication and enthusiasm. She has found that leaders in today’s fast-paced society need to be “adaptive and seek collaborative influence to bring together people who don’t necessarily report back to each other.” The efficiency of the 400,000 employees of IBM has led the company to be the world’s leader in patents; Sanford spoke highly of Lisa Seacott DeLuca, a mobile software engineer, who was the first woman and IBM employee to reach 100 patents before the age of 30. At IBM, the efforts of employees such as DeLuca contribute to the corporation’s overall success, success that has been made possible with Sanford’s restructuring.
Jessica Gardener, graduate from Stevens Class of 2009, came back to listen to Ms. Sanford speak and some of the topics she spoke of related to her life. She said, “I especially enjoyed her describing the future and how IBM is leaning towards industry specific solutions… I’m currently working as a systems engineer, that’s sort of what systems engineers do.”
Ms. Sanford feels that there is much to be accomplished in the following years, and feels that the technology will elevate man to gain insight and move on to the future.
Ms. Sanford is a member of the Women in Technology International hall of Fame and the National Academy of Engineering. She has been named one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Business by Fortune Magazine, one of the Top Ten Innovators in the Technology Industry by Information Week Magazine, and one of the Ten Most influential Women in Technology by Working Women Magazine.
