Dr. Ambuj Goyal is one of the most known faces of the IT industry. He is credited with leading and revolutionizing several technology-driven businesses during his 31-year long career at IBM. He is regarded as an expert in commercializing early ideas and technologies. He is also a recipient of five Outstanding Innovation Awards from IBM for his excellent performance.
Currently, he serves as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Magine AB, a pioneering internet-based TV company offering a personalized TV experience across multiple devices in an innovative and accessible way. Since his joining, he has brought significant investment in innovation and technology development within the company. In 2006, IIT Kanpur conferred upon him the Distinguished Alumnus Award in recognition of his outstanding managerial skills and contributions.
Dr. Ambuj Goyal received his B.Tech. degree in 1978 from IIT Kanpur. In 1982, he received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. That very year, he joined IBM Corporation and continued to work with the company till 2014. During his 31-year long stint with the organization, he held several key portfolios and revolutionized many technology-driven businesses.
He started off as a research staff member at the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York, in 1982. In 1996, he was appointed as the Vice President, Services and Software, and Director, Computer Sciences at IBM. While holding two posts concurrently, he had a responsibility to set IBM's long-term research direction in computer sciences, as well as to ensure that the best emerging technologies contribute to IBM's services offerings and software products. He had approximately 1500 researchers reporting to him in seven labs worldwide. From February 2001 to January 2003, he served as the General Manager, Solutions and Strategy, IBM Software Group. During this stint, he played a key role in setting up the business strategy for IBM's Software Group, the WebSphere Business Integration product set and delivering industry specific middle ware solutions. In January 2003, he was named the General Manager, Lotus Software, where he was responsible for planning and executing the transformation of IBM Lotus Software by expanding its focus beyond the traditional 'Collaboration' marketplace to encompass the 'People Productivity' market. From 2005 to 2009, he served as the General Manager of IBM Information Management Software driving IBM's emergence as a leader in the business analytics space, combining software innovation with strategic acquisitions including Cognos and FileNet. With a motive to help clients optimize their business by focusing on information as a strategic selling point, he created and led IBM's Information Agenda strategy.
Dr. Goyal also led the Business Analytics and Process Optimization unit of IBM software group. In that role, he was responsible for creating and delivering solutions that help organizations transform and improve their businesses using IBM's analytics and process optimization capabilities and industry-aligned expertise across software, hardware and services organizations. Later, he served as the General Manager of System Storage & Networking, IBM where he efficiently supervised the team responsible for engineering and development of IBM server and storage systems hardware and software. Being a storage general manager he was not too keen on object storage and envisaged an IBM that sells 'less storage'. In his opinion, "the choice is defined by the desired business outcomes and not by a desire to sell more storage product."
Dr. Ambuj Goyal's core research topics are high-performance systems, databases and distributed systems. His early work in scalable databases led to IBM's Universal Database (DB2) family. He was also responsible for setting the early direction in web application servers which led to the WebSphere product family. He also led the research efforts to create the RS/6000 SP supercomputer and the Deep Blue World Chess Champion computer. He has authored over 25 articles in various fields. In 2002, he was elected an ACM Fellow for his contributions to the theory and practice of highly dependable systems; he was also elected as an IEEE Fellow in recognition of his outstanding technical and professional achievements in the field of information technology
