Virginia M. Rometty, 54, will succeed present IBM CEO Sam Palmisano to be the next chief executive at the start of 2012, the company announced Tuesday. This is unprecedented in the New York-based company\'s 100-year history, because Rometty, a senior vice president of IBM, will be its first female CEO. Since joining the company three decades ago, Ms. Rometty has contributed a lot to the giant I.T. Company. After graduating from Northwestern University with an undergraduate degree in computer science, she entered the company in 1981 as a systems engineer. In virtue of outstanding performance, she was quickly promoted to management. For the following 20 years, she worked with clients in banking, insurance, and telecommunications, to name a few. In 2002, Rometty caught Palmisano\'s attention when she helped integrate the 3.5 billion dollar acquisition of the big business consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, IBM\'s largest deal ever at the time. Then she became senior vice president of the group and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy in 2009. Under her leading, the business in overseas emerging markets including China, India, Brazil and several African nations, has increased sharply. New York Times reported that such markets now accounted for 23 percent of IBM.’s revenue, up from 20 percent when she took over. “Ginni got it because she deserved it,” Mr. Palmisano told the New York Times. \"Ginni\" is an informal first name used by her friends and colleagues. The selection of Rometty for chief executive will make her the 17th female CEO in the Fortune 500 on the following January. Other prominent women who play the same role as Rometty include Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, Ellen J. Kullman of DuPont, Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard, and so on.