17 IBM rock star employees that show the company's new direction

It's easy to think of IBM as a company composed mostly of aging white guys - despite its stylish CEO Ginni Rometty.

After all, it's coming up on its 104th birthday in June, and the three-piece-suit culture runs deep in its DNA, with 12 of its 19 senior leaders more or less fitting that profile.

But IBM is going through some major transitional pains right now, getting a lot of attention for shedding older, underperforming business units and laying off thousands of workers.

At the same time, IBM says it's still hiring like crazy, refreshing its workforce with people in the hot new "strategic" areas it has staked its future on, like cloud and security.

So we asked IBM to point out some of its rising stars, the people who represent its future. Here they are.