James J. Kavanaugh — Board Member Accountability Profile
Category: Private Citizen — Corporate Director Role: Independent Director, T-Mobile US Inc. (TMUS) Board Tenure: 2023 – present Committee Memberships: Audit Committee Profile Type: Board Member Accountability — Anchor B (Documented Organizational Leadership)
Basis for Inclusion: James J. Kavanaugh holds a documented governance role as an independent director and Audit Committee member at T-Mobile US Inc. His concurrent CFO role at IBM — a major federal government technology contractor — creates a governance profile of cross-sector significance. This profile documents the factual governance relationship, not the subject’s personal political views.
Subject Classification: Private Citizen / Corporate Director. Board membership is a matter of public record (SEC filings, proxy statements). This profile documents only the governance role and its connection to documented corporate governance and political activity.
Biographical Overview
James J. Kavanaugh has been CFO of IBM since 2018, overseeing finance, strategy, transformation, and operations for a company with tens of billions of dollars in government technology contracts. He joined IBM in 1995 and has held progressive finance and operations leadership roles over nearly three decades with the company. IBM is one of the largest federal government IT contractors in the United States, with significant exposure to federal procurement decisions.
Kavanaugh joined the T-Mobile board in 2023 as an independent director, bringing financial expertise and large-enterprise technology CFO perspective to the board. His Audit Committee role gives him oversight of T-Mobile’s financial reporting alongside Srikant Datar.
He holds a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Board Role and Governance Authority
- Company: T-Mobile US Inc. (NASDAQ: TMUS)
- Board tenure: 2023 – present
- Committee assignments: Audit Committee
- Day job: CFO, IBM Corporation (NYSE: IBM)
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Investigative trail pointers (public records)
Education only — verify independently. Absence of hits is not proof.
| Channel | Starting points |
|---|---|
| Federal courts | CourtListener / PACER party and attorney searches (spelling variants) |
| Campaign finance | FEC + OpenSecrets for committees and donors tied to documented roles |
| Corporate / LLC | State secretary of state; OpenCorporates for cross-border shells from reporting |
| Sanctions / PEP | OpenSanctions when international business context is already sourced |
| Contracts / grants | USAspending.gov for named entities from investigations |
Use public-records-research-specialist, corporate-intelligence-investigator, and public-corruption-ombudsman evidence tiers.
Sources
- T-Mobile US Inc. DEF 14A Proxy Statement, filed April 18, 2025; SEC EDGAR (CIK 1283699)