IBM's UK CEO: Keep your pit crew close

Nicola Hodson is the UK & Ireland CEO of the global technology company IBM. She took up the top job at IBM in January 2023 after nearly 15 years at Microsoft. The personal advice she wants to share is that it’s important to have a team of mentors, rather than just one.

She likes them to be drawn from different industries and backgrounds to give her extra perspective. And she likes to have both male and female mentors. 

“As a CEO, I like to keep my pit crew really close to me,” she says. That “pit crew” turns out to be quite an eclectic bunch: it includes her office staff, but also her yoga teacher, a sports coach and a team of mentors. 

It also means she can approach each one for different advice, though on some occasions she will “triangulate”, seeking guidance from all of them. 

She doesn’t see her pit crew every week. In fact, with some of them she might only catch up twice a year. But she makes sure she spends a good length of time with each one so she can really use them as a sounding board and benefit from their wisdom. 

This pit crew has, she says, been “vital” to success in her career.