UPS names IBM vet to board

   UPS on Friday named former IBM senior vice president of corporate strategy Rodney Adkins as a company director effective immediately.
   Adkins will serve on UPS’ audit committee and his appointment expands the UPS board to 13 directors. He will stand for election to a regular one-year term at UPS’s annual shareholders’ meeting in May 2014.
   Adkins, 54, has more than 30 years of experience at IBM leading global teams, managing multi-billion dollar business units and delivering a vast portfolio of product innovations and enterprise solutions.
   “Rod’s experience as a senior executive at one of the world’s largest innovation and technology companies will be important to UPS as we execute our transformative, global strategies,” said Scott Davis, UPS chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement. “His perspective on strategy, manufacturing and supply chain management, engineering, technology development, and operations, will be important as UPS advances innovative solutions to our customers.”
   Adkins was previously the senior vice president for the Systems and Technology Group, which encompassed all aspects of IBM’s semiconductor, server, storage and system software. The company’s integrated supply chain organization and global business partners organization also reported to him.
   Adkins also held a number of product management and executive roles at IBM, including running the desktop PC and UNIX Systems businesses. He was general manager of Pervasive Computing, which under his leadership developed software assets that are part of IBM’s Smarter Planet portfolio.