Seldom has a business executive stepped on to the global stage with so little known about her outside of her own company. Ginni Rometty, a native of Chicago with a high-wattage smile and the self-assured manner that comes from a career largely spent courting clients, this week claimed one of the top titles in US business: that of chief executive of IBM, which she will take on at the start of next year.

That she is hardly a household name is no accident. The buttoned-down, east coast company she will head is far removed from the Silicon Valley culture that produced Steve Jobs. As Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor, says: “IBM is not a cult of personality.”

Like it or not, Ms Rometty is about to be thrown into the spotlight. As a woman rising to the top of one of the bastions of the male-dominated IT industry – and an icon of corporate America to boot – she will inevitably become a symbol for other aspiring female executives. For some, her success or failure will come to shape opinions about the progress in the business world of her entire sex.