Big changes in the upper management team at Intel

Jan 13, 2021 19:04 GMT  ·  By

The last few years have been quite tough for Intel, and now the company is getting ready for another big change.

CEO Bob Swan will leave the company on February 15, with VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him at the helm of Intel and also join the board of directors.

“I am thrilled to rejoin and lead Intel forward at this important time for the company, our industry and our nation,” said Gelsinger.

“Having begun my career at Intel and learned at the feet of Grove, Noyce and Moore, it’s my privilege and honor to return in this leadership capacity. I have tremendous regard for the company’s rich history and powerful technologies that have created the world’s digital infrastructure. I believe Intel has significant potential to continue to reshape the future of technology and look forward to working with the incredibly talented global Intel team to accelerate innovation and create value for our customers and shareholders.”

No word the reasons for Swan’s departure

As for the reasons that led to Bob Swan’s departure, very little has been said in this regard, though it’s pretty clear the company’s latest market performance has definitely contributed to this decision.

Intel has been having a hard time shipping its latest-generation chips, with the production process hit by major delays overall. All the problems Intel has been struggling with pushed partners to begin looking for alternatives, and now with the transition to custom ARM chips, the company has a hard time keeping partners close.

Swan, however, says Intel has “made significant progress” in the last two years and Gelsinger is now the right person to continue the growth overall.

“My goal over the past two years has been to position Intel for a new era of distributed intelligence, improving execution to strengthen our core CPU franchise and extending our reach to accelerate growth,” said Swan. “With significant progress made across those priorities, we’re now at the right juncture to make this transition to the next leader of Intel. I am fully supportive of the board’s selection of Pat and have great confidence that, under his leadership and the rest of the management team, Intel will continue to lead the market as one of the world’s most influential technology companies.”