SAN FRANCISCO — IBM has appointed Michael Mendenhall chief marketing officer and chief communications officer, IBM Watson and Cloud Platform. He is tasked with global marketing, branding and communications for IBM's Watson & Cloud Platform while further establishing it as the premier cloud and artificial intelligence business platform. 

Mendenhall will report to David Kenny, senior vice president, IBM Watson & Cloud Platform and will work closely with Michelle Peluso, chief marketing officer, IBM. He will begin his new role on July 10, 2017 and will be based in San Francisco. 

Mendenhall makes the move from electronics solutions company Flex, where he spent nearly three years as chief communications officer. There, he led the company's rebranding with the idea of sketch to scale and launched the 'Live Smarter' campaign while launching products such as Google Chromecast. 

Prior to Flex, Mendenhall was EVP and CMO of Fusion.io where he helped transform the company's brand positioning and product alignment. 

Prior to Flex, he spent over three years as chief marketing officer at HP. Before that, Mendenhall was at the Walt Disney Company for 17 years. During his time there he rose from president of marketing and synergy to served as executive vice president, global marketing.