IBM Distinguished Engineer Wesley Leggette is the chief technology officer of IBM Cloud Storage. His patent portfolio, which includes more than 600 issued and pending, enabled the creation of the Public Cloud Object Storage, one of IBM’s most successful public cloud offerings.

Since starting as an intern at Chicago startup Cleversafe, Inc. Wesley has driven transformation enabling critical customer wins across financial services, telecom, media & entertainment. Cleversafe’s dispersed object storage technology was a first of its kind, ushering in previously unseen advances in storage efficiency and reliability.

Wesley joined IBM when it acquired Cleversafe for $1.4B, after which he led the evolution of Cleversafe from an on-premise only product to become part of the IBM Cloud, transforming the product from archive-only focus to become the foundation of IBM’s AI and Analytics strategy. He will receive an Outstanding Contribution Award at the 2022 BEYA STEM Conference.

“Perhaps more important than the technical results, Wesley has distinguished himself as a leader. He served as the connective glue between the teams, ensuring not only that the teams work well together but serving as a role model to both old and new IBMers,” said Phil Buckellew of the IBM Cloud Platform Development.