14 DAY TRIAL // In a strange turn of events, AMD announced that CEO Dirk Meyer resigned, the company naming CFO Thomas Seifert as interim chief executive officer while it searches for a replacement.
In the meantime, a special committee has been formed to begin searching for a new CEO since Seifert asked not to be considered as a candidate for this position.
The committee is led by Bruce Claflin, hairman of AMD’s Board of Directors, who has assumed additional oversight responsibilities during the transition period.
“Dirk became CEO during difficult times. He successfully stabilized AMD while simultaneously concluding strategic initiatives including the launch of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, the successful settlement of our litigation with Intel and delivering Fusion APUs to the market,” said Claflin.
”However, the Board believes we have the opportunity to create increased shareholder value over time. This will require the company to have significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns.
We believe a change in leadership at this time will accelerate the company’s ability to accomplish these objectives,” continues Claflin.
The move is extremely strange since rarely does a CEO leave so suddenly, without leaving time for a replacement to be found, especially when the company is so near to a major product launch.
Meyer joined AMD in 1996 together with other DEC engineers that left after Compaq's acquisition.
At AMD, Meyer lead the team that designed and developed the initial Athlon processors as well as the following K8 – Athlon 64 architecture.
After Hector Ruiz resigned as CEO in July 2008, Meyer was named in its place where it managed to turn around the company's finances, its stock price going up from less than $2 to more than $9 a share.
Together with this announcement, AMD also released some preliminary Q4 2010 financial results.
According to the company, its revenue increased 2 percent sequentially to approximately $1.65 billion and gross margin was approximately 45 percent.