5 Tech Execs Who Could Become Intel's Next CEO

Who's Next For Intel?

The search is on for Intel's next CEO after former chief executive Brian Krzanich was forced to resign last week over a relationship he had with an employee.

Intel has been tight-lipped about who could potentially take over, only saying that its search will include internal and external candidates. But speculation in media reports has already produced a pool of potential candidates Intel could pick from, including executives who work elsewhere.

Robert Swan, Intel's chief financial officer who is now interim CEO, could be viewed as a potential candidate, but he reportedly told employees he wasn't interested in taking the role permanently, The Wall Street Journal reported. Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of VMware who was Intel's first chief technology officer, is also seen as a potential candidate, but he shot down the idea in a tweet.

While this potentially eliminates two persons from what some industry observers have called a small bench, there are five other potential candidates whose names are currently being floated as Krzanich's successor. In the following slides, we take a look at those five candidates and what makes them qualified.

Stacy Smith

Smith, Intel's former president of manufacturing operations and sales, is among the top executives who left under Krzanich's leadership when he retired in January 2018. But the 30-year Intel veteran is still seen as a potential CEO candidate because of his time with the company and his technology experience. Another executive who departed, Renee James, is also considered a potential candidate, but she has been busy with her Carlyle Group-backed chip startup Ampere Computer.

Diane Bryant

Another Intel veteran considered a potential candidate is Bryant, who became chief operations officer of Google Cloud in November after serving as the executive in charge of Intel's Data Center Group. Given the company's data-centric strategy, Bryant could help Intel accelerate its data center revenue growth and hold ground against the company's archrival AMD, who former CEO Krzanich recently said would gain more market share in the sector. Bryant also has a long history with Intel, having joined in 1985.

Sanjay Jha

One of the outsiders considered a potential candidate is Jha, who stepped down earlier this year as CEO of Globalfoundries Inc., the semiconductor foundry that manufactures integrated circuits for AMD, Broadcom and Qualcomm, among other companies. Citing a person familiar with Intel's thinking, The Wall Street Journal reported that Jha has previously been on Intel's short list of executives. Before Gloalfoundries, Jha was co-CEO at Motorola and held a series of leadership roles at Qualcomm.

Venkata M. Renduchintala

Reduchintala, Intel's chief engineering officer, has been cited as a potential internal candidate. The executive, who is also group president of Intel's technology, systems architecture and client group, has overseen Intel's development of traditional processors, as well as the company's new graphics card technology that is under wraps. According to The Wall Street Journal, Reduchintala had been charged by former CEO Krzanich to help Intel tackle manufacturing issues for its next-generation chip. Reduchintala was previously a longtime executive at Qualcomm, and he sits on Accenture's board of directors.

Navin Shenoy

Shenoy, the executive now in charge of Intel's Data Center Group, is also seen as a potential internal candidate. In his role, Shenoy leads the company's international efforts to expand Intel's data-centric businesses, which includes servers, network, storage, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and Intel's field programmable gate arrays. Having joined Intel in 1995, Shenoy is another long-time employee, who was previously in charge of the company's Client Computing Group. He also served as chief of staff and technical assistant to former Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini for three years.