IBM CEO Ginni Rometty: Growth and comfort don't co-exist

If any tech company illustrates the word ‘transformation,' it's 103-year-old IBM. Now more than ever. IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has no choice but to embrace it, she said on stage at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, California.

"Growth and comfort don't co-exist. That's true for people, companies, nations," she said. Rometty is leading IBM through one of those ‘change or else' periods. IBM's overall revenue has declined over the past three years and she's being pressured to turn that around. But she's not going to be forced into chasing what she calls "empty calories," Rometty recently told The New York Times.

"So when people keep pushing us for growth, that is not the number one priority on my list." Instead she's investing billions in longer-term plays. Rometty also says she's inspired by something late Governor of Texas, Ann Richards said years ago: Passion and perseverance when everyone else would have given up.