Calline Sanchez

VP Global TSS Service Planning & Premium Support

IBM – Arizona & New Mexico State Executive

By Tara Kirkpatrick

For Calline Sanchez, IBM is a great big candy store of innovation and opportunity.

The current VP of global TSS service planning and premium support at the multinational tech giant, Sanchez heads a team that delivers systems technology services to companies and clients. She leads IBM’s efforts in the Southwest, as the Arizona and New Mexico state leader.

“The ‘candy’ so to speak, ranges from enterprise storage, which includes all storage media types – tape, flash, disk and software defined solutions like data de-duplication and virtualization,” said Sanchez, who has two bachelor’s degrees and an MBA from the University of Arizona. “Additionally leading the worldwide technical university programs – was the sugar on top. Helping employees, customers and business partners learn to be smarter about the technology IBM serves – that is extra sweet!”

The eldest of seven children, Sanchez began her IBM career as a software engineer intern in 1999 after working at Sandia National Laboratories as a coder, database developer and lab technician. After joining IBM fulltime in 2001, she has held several executive leadership positions and overseen the company’s storage technology. This past pandemic year, Sanchez has worked to build new skills, adding new platforms such as Slack, Trello, Mural and WebEx to her tech arsenal.

“As with all of us, this past year has offered new, interesting challenges,” she said. “Truly, we are all in this together and I am learning how to be a virtual collaborator.”

Sanchez has been a role model for women in engineering. “I’ve been especially proud of the women I have helped support over my 20-year career at IBM,” she said. “Many of these strong, tremendous leaders have gone to lead global teams, and engineering in storage technology, product services, service planning, support and technology innovations.”

She serves on UArizona’s MIS board of advisors, the Southern Arizona Leadership Council and the board of directors for the Arizona-Mexico Commission, which works to build a cross-border community of professionals in different industries.

“Calline is a distinguished, effective and innovative leader,” said Juan Ciscomani, Gov. Doug Ducey’s senior advisor for regional and international affairs who has worked closely with Sanchez for many years. “She has served on the Arizona-Mexico board of directors since 2019, playing a vital role in fostering the unique Arizona-Mexico relationship while representing Southern Arizona. Her experience and expertise have been instrumental in advancing and strengthening our priorities with our state’s top trading partner.”