The IBM Client Innovation Center downtown has been without a local executive at the helm since November, when Christine Alford left the position she had held for nearly three years.
IBM corporate officials won’t say why, specifically, Alford is no longer overseeing the Baton Rouge facility, nor will they provide information regarding a replacement.
Her departure came just two months after IBM renegotiated its incentive agreement with the state after failing to meet an employment quota of 800 jobs.
“Ms. Alford is a talented executive and her move was driven solely by need for her expertise elsewhere within IBM,” company spokesman Adam Pratt says.
The site is under interim leadership, he adds.
Though Alford had been the head of the local IBM facility since early 2015, she never lived in Baton Rouge. Rather, she commuted to the city periodically from her home base in Toronto, Ontario. She was also in charge of several other IBM delivery centers in North America.
State economic development officials were unaware that Alford had moved on. Louisiana Economic Development spokesman Gary Perilloux says “LED maintains regular contact with many companies, including IBM, as part of our business expansion and retention outreach. We have not had a conversation with IBM about any personnel changes at its Louisiana locations but look forward to discussing any pertinent developments at an appropriate time.”
Alford worked with the state in renegotiating its incentive deal in 2017.
Alford did notify Baton Rouge Area Chamber President and CEO Adam Knapp she was leaving, as she was a member of the BRAC board and had to resign from that position.
During her tenure in Baton Rouge, Alford kept a relatively low profile around the city compared to that of her predecessor, Tim McLaughlin, and his manager for talent development, Dima Ghawi. Both were very visible in the community in IBM’s early days—particularly Ghawi, who frequented the local speaker circuit with talks about IBM and the significance of its corporate presence in Baton Rouge.
McLaughlin retired in January 2015. Ghawi left the company about six months later.
Alford’s tenure also was marked by the company’s failure to attract or retain the hundreds of workers that were promised.
Former IBM employees said the company offered starting salaries that were below market rate and that many of the positions it advertised, like software development, were actually jobs for quality assurance or administrative work.
