Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president and economic advisor to President Donald Trump, is joining IBM as its vice chairman.
Cohn announced the move in a tweet Tuesday morning in which he said he was “honored” to be joining the company’s board.
IBM shares traded up about 1.2% following the news.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer said the announcement is “an exciting move for IBM. Gary can be a change agent.”
In the new role, Cohn will act as an advisor to IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who took over the company in April with a pledge to expand its reach into the artificial intelligence and cloud computing space.
That might make Cohn an unusual choice in that his experience is primarily in finance and economics. He served nearly 11 years at Goldman as chairman and chief operating officer before accepting Trump’s nomination as director of the National Economic Council.
While in the White House, he helped shepherd through the record tax cut package in 2017 but later became at odds with the president. He left the advisory position in April 2018 and was replaced by former CNBC host Larry Kudlow.
After heading back into the private sector, Cohn soon entered the venture capital space, partnering with Cliff Robbins to form Cohn Robbins Holding Corp. Despite accepting the position at IBM, Cohn said he will continue his involvement with Robbins.
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