• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, October 17, 2019

Interpublic Group has appointed former IBM senior executive Linda Sanford to its board as an independent director. 

Sanford’s appointment expands IPG’s board to 12 directors, 11 of whom are independent. It also increases the number of women on the board to four, or one third of the total directors.

Sanford retired from IBM in 2014, where she had been one of the company’s highest-ranking women and one of the technology sector’s senior-most executives.

Prior to retirement, Sanford had been the Senior Vice President, Enterprise Transformation for IBM, a role in which she was tasked with transforming the company’s core business processes and creating  an IT infrastructure to support those processes. Also part of her remit: Creating a culture that fosters innovation.

Sanford is a member of the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame and the National Academy of Engineering. She has been named one of the 50 Most Influential Women in Business by Fortune magazine, one of the Top Ten Innovators in the Technology Industry by Information Week magazine, and one of the Ten Most Influential Women in Technology by Working Woman magazine.

Sanford co-authored Let Go To Grow: Escaping the Commodity Trap, a book that details how successful companies are pursuing strategies to drive long-term growth and innovation. 

Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO of IPG, said that Sanford’s “understanding of and expertise in the technology sector will be invaluable assets to our board and to IPG as we continue to evolve in an ever-changing environment where business transformation and data governance are key to our clients’ marketing needs.” 

Sanford also serves on the Board of Directors of RELX Group, Consolidated Edison Inc. and Pitney Bowes Inc., as well as the Board of the New York Hall of Science.