Intel Corp.’s search for a new chief executive will draw a lot of attention from outsiders, with the chipmaker considering candidates. Marvell Technology Inc. head Matt Murphy and ex Cadence Design Systems Inc. CEO Lip-Bu Tan, according to people familiar with the situation.
The company has brought in executive search firm Spencer Stuart to help find a new chief and is evaluating candidates, the people said, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. This means looking beyond Intel’s walls for talent – a break with tradition.
The sudden ouster of CEO Pat Gelsinger this week triggered an urgent search for new leadership at a time when the chipmaker’s revenues are faltering and years of management churn have drained its bank. Gelsinger took over just three years ago, and since then has focused on a complex and expensive effort to turn around the struggling company.
That didn’t give him time to revive another of Intel’s legacies — an executive training program that once supplied the rest of the industry’s leaders. For now, Chief Financial Officer David Zinsner and Holthaus Executive Vice President Michelle Johnston are interim CEOs.
Marvell shares fell 2.3% on Tuesday after Bloomberg News reported that Murphy was under consideration. Intel was down more than 5% as of 1:09 p.m. in New York, continuing a retreat that began on Monday.
All but one of the company’s leaders since its inception in 1968 have been homegrown, with the exception, Bob Swan, given the job as a stopgap when the board forced out Brian Krzanich. The drama broke the carefully choreographed sequence that had helped stabilize the company for five decades. Some Intel veterans also left during Krzanich’s tenure.
As the commission searches for Gelsinger’s permanent replacement, analysts say choosing from within may be difficult, in part because earlier exodus means there are fewer strong internal candidates. On the other hand, there is little optimism that the company will be able to bring in an outside savior who can immediately shake things up.
“It may be difficult to find a replacement with the right experience and background, the ability to manage a complex organization like Intel and the ability to effectively deal with the many headwinds,” KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst John Vinh wrote in a note on Monday. .
Intel declined to comment on potential CEO candidates. Marvell, Murphy and Tan did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters previously reported that 65-year-old Tan, who It was served on Intel’s board until the beginning of the year, he was competing for the position.
One way to balance the insider-outsider equation would be to hire a veteran Intel executive who left the management tumult of the past few years – like Gelsinger.
One such candidate would be Stacy Smith, a former Intel executive who joined the company’s board this year. The former Intel CFO, who also spent time in the company’s sales organization, left during Krzanich’s tenure in 2018 and was the first applicant for the job. A more recent departure is Gregory Bryant, who ran Intel’s personal computer unit. He did one Analog devices Inc. in 2022
Also in this cohort is Ampere Computing LLC CEO Renee James, who founded a startup trying to compete in Intel server chips. He was the chairman of Intel until Krzanich stepped aside. The former The Lenovo Group Ltd. executive Kirk Skaugen, who left Intel in 2016, was in charge of Intel’s server chip unit when it dominated the industry.
Another potential recruit: Intel’s biggest customers, many of which have embarked on their own chip programs with varying degrees of success. Johny Srouji is Senior Vice President the apple Inc.’s successful internal chip unit. The iPhone maker’s in-house program started a trend that has been repeated somewhere elseespecially Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS unit. Microsoft Corp., of Alphabet Inc google and Meta platforms Inc. has also created significant groups of chips.
When Intel was trying to bring Gelsinger back to the company about four years ago, other chip company executives, including Marvell’s Murphy, were reported to be considering it. Intel has now turned to him for the latest search, the people said.
Despite his severe decline luckIntel remains one of the most important companies in the technology industry. It is still one of the largest chipmakers by revenue, and more than 70% of the world’s personal computers and server machines run on its processors. Its plan to build additional plants in the US is the cornerstone of the federal government’s push to make more chips on American soil.
Whoever Intel chooses, the new CEO will need time to make up for the more than $20 billion in revenue lost to competitors over the past two years.
“Besides not having a chair, a new outside CEO coming to Intel is a multi-year gig in an innovation cycle that’s more intense than ever,” Rosenblatt Securities analyst Hans Mosesmann said.
Given the technical nature of the industry — chip design and manufacturing requires a mix of electronic engineering, chemistry and physics, typically led by PhD teams — Intel may be reluctant to promote CFO Zinsner permanently. When CFO Swan became the company’s interim leader, analysts questioned whether he understood the technical side of the business well enough to make strategic decisions.
Gelsinger, who was brought back to Intel after a decade, talked about his ties to the company’s past and his plan to regain its strength. Now, that might not be a selling point. Intel’s immediate need to win over competitors and turn them into customers for its outsourced manufacturing business may mean ditching long-term Intel acolytes.
If the board is looking for immediately transferable skills, Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing Co., Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Nvidia corp. would be the most prominent talent pool. In the company’s latest CEO search, AMD’s Lisa Su was selected by many analysts as a favorite. But since then, the company he runs has enjoyed a higher level of success, taking market share from Intel and emerging as a leading contender to catch Nvidia in artificial intelligence chips. AMD It is currently worth twice as much as Intel by market capitalization.
Recruiting from Nvidia can also be difficult. Founder and CEO Jensen Huang has created a unique management structure that eschews a traditional hierarchy. Huang has dozens of direct reports in a horizontal structure, and it’s nearly impossible to identify among them who is best placed to make a move: at Nvidia or at another company like Intel.
Taiwan’s TSMC, meanwhile, has overtaken Intel in manufacturing capabilities and become the dominant chip maker for other companies. It manufactures the world’s most advanced chips, working for Apple, AMD, Nvidia and many others. At its headquarters in Hsinchu, the executives seen as key to driving TSMC’s meteoric rise include an Intel veteran. Kevin Zhang and Associate Deputy Co-Chief Operating Officer Cliff Hou. In the US, YL Wang, CEO of TSMC Arizona, recently scored a notable victory, helping that plant to do better. profits than comparable facilities at home.
It’s doubtful, however, that TSMC’s top brass would consider abandoning the world’s best contract chip maker to save a much less stable company. But former TSMC chairman Mark Liu, who spent the first few years of his career at Intel and retired from the Taiwanese chipmaker as early as 2024, could be someone Intel could appeal to, even though he is older than an American CEO. Liu turned 70 this year.
“We do not expect it to be easy for Intel to find a new leader with the credentials to lead Intel through this challenge,” Wolfe Research analyst Chris Caso wrote in a report. “Gelsinger came to Intel with a wealth of experience, and there weren’t many viable candidates.”
