University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Grainger College of Engineering

Hillery C. Hunter

[title]

 For her outstanding innovations in systems hardware and cloud computing and contributions to the next generation of technical leaders.

CTO and General Manager of Innovation, IBM Infrastructure

  • BS, Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1999
  • MS, Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2002
  • PhD, Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2004

Hillery Hunter is the CTO and general manager of innovation for IBM Infrastructure. In this role, she is focused on driving innovation and growth across IBM's Infrastructure portfolio, including IBM Z, Power, Storage and IBM Cloud. In her previous role as general manager of Industry Clouds and CTO of IBM Cloud, she led business and technical strategy for IBM’s industry-contextualized cloud offerings and was responsible for technical strategy for IBM's public cloud. Prior to this role, she served as director of Accelerated Cognitive Infrastructure in IBM Research, leading a team doing cross-stack (hardware through software) optimization of AI workloads.


Her technical interests have always been interdisciplinary, spanning from silicon technology through system software, and she has served in technical and leadership roles in memory technology, Systems for AI, and other areas. She has received numerous awards throughout her career including IBM’s Outstanding Technical Achievement Award. She is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and was appointed as an IBM Fellow in 2017. Hillery is a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Current as of February 2024