3 Ways Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan Is Shaking Up Company Leadership
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly tells employees that he is shaking up the company’s leadership structure to cut down on what he sees as ‘organizational complexity and bureaucratic processes [that] have been slowly suffocating the culture of innovation we need to win.’
These moves and other changes were announced in a memo Tan recently sent to Intel employees, Reuters reported Thursday.
[Related: Intel’s Christoph Schell Warns Partners Of ‘Pain’ On Path To A Better Future]
An Intel spokesperson declined to confirm the memo’s content but said in a statement: “We continue to focus on fostering a culture of innovation across the company that empowers our engineering teams to create great products and delight our customers.”
Representing Tan’s first major decisions as Intel’s new CEO, the leader reportedly said the changes are meant to cut down on “organizational complexity and bureaucratic processes [that] have been slowly suffocating the culture of innovation we need to win.”
“It takes too long to make decisions. New ideas are not given room or resources to incubate. And unnecessary silos lead to inefficient execution,” Tan reportedly wrote.
The changes were announced internally after Tan, who became Intel’s CEO a month ago, urged the beleaguered semiconductor giant’s partners and customers to “be brutally honest with us” as he takes on the “very challenging task” of building a “new Intel.”
“It had been a tough period for quite a long time for Intel. We fell behind on innovation. As a result, we have been too slow to adapt and to meet your needs. You deserve better, and we need to improve, and we will,” he said at the Intel Vision 2025 event last month.
What follows are the three big changes Tan announced for Intel’s leadership structure.
Business Units To Report To The CEO—Again
Tan reportedly said in his memo that Intel’s biggest money-making business units, the Data Center and AI Group and the Client Computing Group, will now report directly to him.
This is a change from a previous reporting structure that Intel put in place in early December when it announced the retirement of its previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who was reportedly forced out by the company’s board of directors.
At the time, Intel announced that company veteran Michelle Johnston Holthaus would take on the newly created role of CEO of Intel Products, a new group that consisted of the Client Computing Group, the Data Center and AI Group and the Network and Edge Group.
This meant that the leaders of those business units reported to Holthaus, who also served as one of Intel’s interim co-CEOs until Tan was appointed its new leader.
While Tan is making the business unit leaders direct reports of the CEO again, he said that Holthaus will remain CEO of Intel Products and see her responsibilities expand.
“I want to roll up my sleeves with the engineering and product teams so I can learn what’s needed to strengthen our solutions,” Tan reportedly wrote. “As Michelle and I drive this work, we plan to evolve and expand her role with more details to come in the future.”
The Data Center and AI Group is led by Karin Eibschitz Segal, who took over from Justin Hotard as the business unit’s interim leader in February, while the Client Computing Group is led by Jim Johnson, who took over from Holthaus in December.
Tan Makes Networking Exec Chief Technology And AI Officer
Tan reportedly announced that he is giving the general manager of Intel’s Network and Edge Group, Sachin Katti, the role of chief technology and AI officer.
The CEO characterized this move as an expansion of Katti’s responsibilities, signaling that Katti would continue to serve to lead the Network and Edge Group, which he has done since early 2023, a little more than a year after he joined Intel.
As Intel’s new chief technology and AI officer, Katti will be responsible for Intel’s overall AI strategy and AI product road map, according to Tan. He will also oversee Intel Labs as well as the company’s relationships with startups and third-party developers.
The executive is succeeding Greg Lavender, who is retiring from Intel, according to Tan. Lavender was hired as CTO by former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger in mid-2022 and previously worked at VMware with the same title when Gelsinger led that company.
Katti is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University, where he has worked on several research projects related to technology, including one on “delivering visibility and operational automation for [machine learning] at the edge.”
He was previously co-founder and CEO of Kumu Networks, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company that sought to revolutionize the way wireless systems are built.
Three Technical Execs To Report Directly To Tan
Tan said three veteran technical executives will now report directly to him.
“This supports our emphasis on becoming an engineering-focused company and will give me visibility into what’s needed to compete and win,” he reportedly wrote.
The executives in question are Rob Bruckner, Mike Hurley and Lisa Peace.
Bruckner, a 28-year Intel veteran, is corporate vice president and CTO of client platform architecture, according to an Intel web page from last year.
Hurley, a 24-year company veteran, is corporate vice president and general manager of the Client Silicon Engineering Group, and Pearce, a 28-year company veteran, is corporate vice president and general manager of GPU and NPU hardware-software technology as well as client graphics, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
