Robert Lord is IBM's first Chief Digital Officer where he is now missioned with bringing together the IBM Digital Business Group. He is responsible for overseeing the Digital Platforms team, Digital Sales organization, Digital Marketing, Routes to Market and Offering teams, and IBM's Developer and Startup Ecosystem
Lord began working at General Motors in June 1983 as a shift supervisor and industrial engineer where he stayed for a year. Then he began working for Corning Inc. as a senior industrial project engineer/marketing project engineer from June 1985- September 1988. In 1990, Lord went on to become the senior principal consultant and project manager for Symmetrix and left in 1995. After leaving Symmetrix in 1995, he became the Area Vice President of Contract Services for NovaCare until leaving in 1996. After leaving NovaCare he joined Advanced Rehab Services until 1998 when he was named Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Prism Rehab Services until 1999. In 2000, Lord became the Vice President of Client Support Services for agility.com and left within the same year to become the Vice President of Corporate Alliances and Business Development at Pretzel Logic Software. In November 2000, Lord left Pretzel Logic to become the Executive Vice President of North America Razorfish. In 2002, he became the Chief Operating Officer of Razorfish Inc, then in 2003 successfully sold Razorfish to SBI Inc. and became Executive Vice President of SBI-Razorfish Inc. In 2004, he became the East Region President of Razorfish, a Subsidiary of aQuantive until 2007 where he became the East Region President of Razorfish, a Subsidiary of Microsoft and in 2010 became the Global CEO of Razorfish, Subsidiary of Publis Group. In 2011, he went on to become the Global CEO of VivaKi Interactive at Razorfish until 2013. In 2013, Lord became the CEO of AOL Platforms until 2015 when he became the President of AOL. In early 2016, Lord became the Chief Digital Officer of IBM. In his current role, Bob launched the IBM Call For Code, which is part of IBM DeveloperWorks and is an effort aimed at developers to engage in the greater community. Lord is the co-author of the book Converge: Transforming Businesses at the Intersection of Marketing and Technology, which discusses how technology, media, and creativity are uniting and how this shift is revolutionizing marketing and business strategy. He is a member of the Nantucket ProjectAdvisory Board and a member of the Board of Directors of the Trustworthy Accountability Group. In 2017, Lord joined the Board of Directors at Williams-Sonoma, Inc..
