Intel re-orgs executive roles, ditches 30-year veteran • The Register
Intel’s CEO of Products, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, will leave the business, as part of the latest executive shake-up since CEO Lip Bu Tan seized the company’s reins.
Holthaus had served the company for nearly thirty years. She took on the CEO of Products role last December when asked to serve alongside CFO David Zinsner as interim co-CEOs following former Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger’s sudden departure.
After 10 short months in the role, her tenure has been ended.
“Throughout her incredible career, Michelle has transformed major businesses, built high-performing teams and worked to delight our customers,” Tan said in a canned statement. “She has made a lasting impact on our company and inspired so many of us with her leadership. We are grateful for all Michelle has given Intel and wish her the best.”
According to Intel, Holthaus (MJ) will stay on in an advisory capacity to ensure a seamless transition, but will not be replaced. “MJ’s role will not be backfilled. With strong leaders now in place across DCG and CCG, MJ has decided to depart Intel,” an Intel spokesperson toldEl Reg.
Holthaus’s departure comes amid a broader executive shake up at the x86 giant.
Former executive vice president of solutions engineering at Arm, Kevork Kechichian, has joined Intel as the new head of Intel’s datacenter group.
Kechichian brings considerable engineering experience to a division that has struggled to compete with its smaller rival AMD. Prior to Arm, he spent three years as the EVP of engineering at NXP Semiconductor, and two years as a Senior VP of Engineering at Qualcomm.
Design chops appear to be a theme in Intel’s reorg, as Jim Johnson, who’s held numerous engineering roles at the company, got the job of running Intel’s Client Computing Group.
The move comes as Intel attempts to resume making its own chips after outsourcing production to rival foundry TSMC to maintain some semblance of competitiveness with AMD and a growing number of Arm-based CPU vendors like Apple and Qualcomm.
Meanwhile, Srinivasan (Srini) Iyengar, who joined in June after nearly 30 years at Tan’s former roost, Cadence Systems, will take over as head of the Central Engineering Group, a new division where he’ll “lead horizontal engineering functions and build a new custom silicon business to serve a broad range of external customers.”
Finally, things are looking a bit more stable at Intel’s Foundry division, where Naga Chandrasekaran, EVP and COO of the division, has an expanded role that includes foundry services.
“This will create a more integrated structure spanning technology development, manufacturing and go-to-market to better serve customers,” the company claims. ®
