Dr. Gururaj S. Rao

As Chief Engineer for S/390 hardware design, he is widely regarded as the key technical leader driving the evolution of IBM's large high-end systems. His team successfully implemented IBM?s breakthrough copper interconnect technology to set a new industry standard in semiconductors. Born in India, he received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Mysore. He then received an M.S. degree from the Indian Institute of Science before coming to the U.S. for a Ph.D. from Stanford. He taught Electrical Engineering at Rice University before joining IBM in 1978. He quickly distinguished himself as a superior engineer, with a mind capable of grasping the design pathways most likely to lead to long-term competitive advantages. He worked through the decline and rebirth of the mainframe during the 1980?s and early 1990?s as a key technical leader who was responsible for the mainframe?s resurrection. As leader of the design and implementation of Systems Leadership functions aimed at differentiating S/390 from its competition, he was personally responsible for such functions as the Asynchronous Data Mover and S/390 data compression. He also contributed the high level design for the S/390 Parallel Query Server and has played a leading role in developing new system architectures that exploit advances in hardware and software technologies. His current title is Systems Chief Engineer, IBM Systems & Technology Group, where he?s responsible for establishing the technical direction for IBM?s enterprise systems. He leads an inter-divisional team of hardware, software, and research engineers. Working with enterprise customers and IBM?s client-facing units, he determines business and customer needs and drives the design of IBM?s enterprise systems to meet those needs. He was named an IBM Fellow in 1969; the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achieve. IBM credited him with the vision and perseverance needed to return the S/390 back to center stage and IBM to a leadership position in this market. He was named Asian American Engineer of the Year in 2008.