General Manager, S/390 Division
IBM
(profile at the time of induction in 1996)
Linda Sanford is the highest-placed technical woman in IBM today. Under her leadership as General Manager of the S/390 Division, the belief that "the mainframe is dead" has been displaced by a resurgence of demand for the revitalized mainframes of the '90s. Her most significant accomplishment to date is her contribution to the transformation of IBM's largest line of mainframe computers, moving from the traditional hierarchical architecture of the '60s and '70s into a robust, cost-competitive enterprise server for the '90s. She was instrumental in creating the vision and subsequent product blueprint for the OS/390 systems software and drove the execution of the hardware and software strategies required for the transformation.
Ms. Sanford's greatest challenge was to lead her team through the cultural transformation required within IBM to make the delivery of the redefined hardware and software products possible. During a period of layoffs and reorganizations, she provided leadership as her employees worked through significant changes in the way they thought about their jobs, their company and their selves while stepping up to the demands of a new high-performance culture.
An advocate for women in business, she is a role model for technical women throughout IBM, acting as mentor and role model to many promising young women. Ms. Sanford has participated in numerous initiatives, including acting as co-chair of IBM's recent Workforce Diversity Task Force on Women and Women of Color and speaking at various conferences, including several sponsored by the YWCA and the Society of Women Engineers.
Ms. Sanford has a B.A. from St. John's and an M.S. in operations research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). She is the mother of two teenagers.
