Bob Lord
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Senior Vice President, The Weather Company and Alliances
Bob is IBM Senior Vice President, The Weather Company and Alliances. He is responsible for driving growth within the The Weather Company, Watson Advertising, and TradeLens – a blockchain-based platform that is digitizing the global supply chain and transforming trade. In addition, Bob is responsible for driving IBM’s strategic partnership transactions to enable the company’s growth and focus on embedding its hybrid cloud and AI technology platform.
In his previous role as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Ecosystems, Bob successfully launched IBM’s global ecosystem model, guided by an unwavering commitment to open innovation within the ecosystem. He transformed how the company engages with partners and developers to ensure client success using an open hybrid cloud approach infused with AI.
In his role overseeing IBM’s ecosystem of developers, Bob launched Call for Code, the largest and most ambitious effort to bring together the world's software developers to take on pressing societal issues by using the latest advanced technologies to problem solve and create cutting-edge solutions. Winning solutions are successfully incubated, field-tested, and deployed in communities where they can make the greatest impact, driving immediate and lasting humanitarian progress. To date, more than 500,000 developers and problem solvers across 180 nations have answered the call. Bob joined IBM in 2016 as the company’s first Chief Digital Officer with a mission to change how IBM innovation is delivered and consumed by the world’s leading organizations.
Prior to IBM, Bob served as President of AOL, leading the company through its evolution into a leading, global advertising platform. He also served as CEO of Razorfish, a pioneering digital transformation consultancy helping companies like Cisco, Condé Nast, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Pfizer redefine their brands for the digital age.
Bob’s experience and passion made him an active member of the TED community, board member for the Partnership for New York City and Aqua Finance, a Blackstone Company and former board member for Williams-Sonoma and Screen Vision Media. He is one of CRN’s 50 “Most Influential” channel chiefs and the author of Converge: Transforming Business at the Intersection of Marketing and Technology.
He began his career as an engineer, graduating from Syracuse University with a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, and holds an MBA from Harvard University.