Transitioning Red Hat’s finance leadership

Later this year, Laurie Krebs, Red Hat’s senior vice president and chief finance officer (CFO), will retire after five years with the company. Carolyn Nash, currently vice president of global finance, transformations and operations, will be promoted to senior vice president and CFO replacing Laurie on April 1st. Until her retirement in July, Laurie will work with Carolyn to ensure a smooth transition.

Laurie has made a strong impact at Red Hat since joining in 2016, with nearly 30 years of experience at companies like KPMG, Nortel and Cree. As vice president of tax, she played a large part in the organization’s future by managing the tax function leading up to and during IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat in July 2019. When she took over the CFO role in 2019, she not only transitioned into a larger role overseeing all Red Hat’s financial operations, but she was also quickly faced with helping us manage through a global pandemic. Laurie’s compassionate leadership style pushed us all to engage customers and associates with a focus on well-being, resilience and adaptability.  

Throughout her career, Laurie has focused on team building, talent retention, and cultivating diverse and high-performance teams. She prioritizes people above all and is a champion for mentoring and creating opportunities for her team, women and other underrepresented groups. Whether that be leading a women’s empowerment and networking initiative, a mentorship program at Nortel or spearheading the Women in Finance group at Red Hat, Laurie has always understood the value of being an advocate for others. She also serves as the executive sponsor for our Blacks United in Leadership and Diversity (B.U.I.L.D.) Employee Resource Group (ERG). 

As a vice president of Finance, Carolyn currently oversees the Global Finance Transformation and Operations (GTO) organization, which scales the CFO organization for future growth. By working closely with leaders across the company, she accelerates Red Hat value through analytics, process, automation and technology adoption across critical CFO capabilities. Prior to her current role, Carolyn collaborated with our Products and Technology and Marketing organizations, helping align financial investments to crucial business objectives. Carolyn is an avid supporter of the Red Hat leadership development programs and the executive sponsor for the Red Hat Pride ERG. 

Before joining Red Hat in 2016, she spent 16 years at Cisco, most of which were in finance leadership positions. Her most recent role there was as senior director of Business Intelligence and Analytics. In addition, she spent time at Hewlett Packard and KPMG in both finance and accounting roles. Carolyn’s extensive financial and operational industry experience, anchored with a focus on organizational effectiveness, creates inclusive working environments that strengthen cross-functional collaboration. 

Laurie and Carolyn, along with Paul Cormier, Red Hat’s president and CEO, added these statements on today’s announcement:

Laurie Krebs:

"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. 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. 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.”

Carolyn Nash:

“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. 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.”

Paul Cormier: 

“I am grateful to Laurie for the impact that she made at Red Hat during her tenure. 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.”