RALEIGH – Laurie Krebs, who as a corporate tax executive helped seal Red Hat’s $34 billion acquisition by IBM, is retiring as the Hatters’ chief financial officer. Succeeding her will be Carolyn Nash, who already is part of Red Hat management and is a veteran of more than a decade at tech giant Cisco.

Red Hat announced the changes early Tuesday.

Krebs has spent the past five years at Red Hat. Nash, who is vice president of global finance, transformations and operations, will become CFO on April 1.

Laurie Krebs (Red Hat photo)

“My time at Red Hat has taken my career to places I never could have imagined. It is humbling and exciting to look back on all that we have accomplished together,” Krebs said in the announcement. “From scaling the business into a hybrid cloud leader and demonstrating howopen source is where innovation happens, to becoming a place of support and strength for our customers, partners and associates during the pandemic, I am so proud to have played a part in that.”

Krebs’ retirement is the latest in a series of changes among Red Hat’s leadership since the IBM deal closed and former Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst left parent IBM.

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Krebs worked at KPMG, Nortel and Cree across a career spanning nearly three decades before joining Red Hat. She was named CFO in 2019.

IBM closed on the Red Hat deal that same year.

“I am grateful to Laurie for the impact that she made at Red Hat during her tenure,” said Red Hat CEO Paul Cormier. “Her unique combination of strategic finance experience, deep understanding of Red Hat and our industry, and ability to develop a highly effective organization, made her an instrumental leader in our success. Carolyn has a strong track record of driving business value through cross-functional collaboration and brings a people-first approach to leading. I am confident she will build on our success and take us to the next level.”

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Nash signed on with Red Hat in 2016 after almost 16 years at Cisco. Her last position at Cisco was senior director of Business Intelligence and Analytics.

“I am proud to work for Red Hat and have been consistently impressed with the high caliber of associates, a passion for our customers’ success and the boldness by which we drive our organization forward. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work as part of Laurie’s leadership team. Laurie sets an exceptional example of how great leaders connect to their teams and lead through periods of extreme change with compassion and intelligence,” Nash said. “I am honored to be a part of the Red Hat executive team, to build on Laurie’s legacy and to help shape the exciting future of our company.”

Added Krebs: “I have full confidence in Carolyn; she is the right person to step into this role and Red Hat is very fortunate to have such amazing talent within its organization. She has already done so much to enhance how the finance organization works and I can’t wait to see where she leads it in the future.”