IBM Promotes Veeneman, Leonard, Adams to CIO Positions

IBM Corp. named Investment Director Joseph Veeneman as CIO for the company’s pension fund, international foundation and global pooled funds, Veeneman announced in a LinkedIn post.

Veeneman, who has been with IBM since 2006, succeeds Rick Klutey, who retired from IBM in February. Additionally, IBM named Michael Leonard as managing director and CIO of its global retirement funds team and Ed Adams as CIO of the company’s 401(k) retirement plan.

“I look forward to continuing to work with Michael Leonard, now Managing Director and CIO of our global Retirement Funds team, and Ed Adams, now CIO of the IBM 401(k) Plan, as we step into our new roles together and work alongside our global teams to deliver results for IBM and support long‑term retirement outcomes for plan participants,” Veeneman said in a LinkedIn post.

Veeneman now oversees $20 billion of retirement-related and charitable-investment assets and is responsible for investment strategy, capital deployment, risk management and organizational leadership across several geographies and pools of capital, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The IBM pension reopened to participants in 2024 as a cash balance plan—a reversal of the trend of corporate defined benefit plans choosing to close their defined benefit plans in favor of a defined contribution plan—opting to use its funding surplus to fund retirement contributions.

Veeneman earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA in finance from the University of Notre Dame, as well as a J.D. from the Fordham University School of Law.

Leonard joined IBM in 2000, and rose up the ranks in it’s investment team, most recently serving as director, head of IBM retirement funds EMEA and Japan.

He holds a bachelor of science in industrial biochemistry and a graduate diploma in chemical engineering from the University of Limerick, a master of industrial engineering and an MBA from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business Schools and a master of science in quantitative finance from SOAS University London.

Adams, like Leonard and Veeneman, is a long-time IBM employee, having joined the company in 2002, and was most recently director of global defined contribution plans. He holds a bachelor of science degree in accounting from Lehigh University and an MBA from the Stern School of Business at NYU.