One of the most important things for any leader is to never let anyone else define who you are. And you define who you are. I never think of myself as being a woman CEO of this company. I think of myself as a steward of a great institution.

One thing I always think about in making a market, and it again is something I have learned from Sam [Palmisano] as well, he always says, "Be first and be lonely."

Big Data will spell the death of customer segmentation and force the marketer to understand each customer as an individual within eighteen months, or risk being left in the dust.

IBM's long-standing mantra is 'Think.' What has always made IBM a fascinating and compelling place for me, is the passion of the company, and its people, to apply technology and scientific thinking to major societal issues.

For CEOs today, it's all about acheieving growth and efficiency through innovation. It's not about product innovation so much anymore as about innovating business models. process, culture and management.

I've been head of strategy at IBM and together with my colleagues built our five-year plan. My priorities are going to be to continue to execute on that.

I always say, you know, if I sit here and close my eyes and say, 'When did I learn the most in my life, in my career?' It'll always be when I close them and everything I think of is when I took a risk. It's when I think I learned the most.