10 CEOs in the making

In discussions about who will replace Sam Palmisano, Seth Harris of executive search firm Cook Associates says one name inevitably comes up -- Ginni Rometty. Rometty is a senior vice president at IBM, as well as the head of sales and the new head of marketing and strategy. In charge of multi-billion-dollar company operations, the Northwestern computer science and engineering grad has been described as the logical successor to Palmisano. Harris, a managing director at Cook Associates and an IBM alum himself, says Rometty's decades-long tenure at IBM makes her a known quantity, and a proven choice to lead Big Blue.

NEXT: Maureen Sullivan