Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as CEO

Lip-Bu Tan has been appointed to lead struggling Intel effective 18 March. He succeeds interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, who took over from Pat Gelsinger following his exit last December after failing to get the battered chipmaker back on track. Zinsner will remain executive vice president and CFO and Johnston Holthaus will remain CEO of Intel Products. Tan will also rejoin the Intel board of directors after stepping down from it in August 2024.

Tan is a longtime technology investor and widely respected executive with more than twenty years of semiconductor and software experience as well as deep relationships across Intel’s ecosystem. He served as CEO of Cadence Design Systems from 2009 to 2021, where he led a reinvention of the company and drove a cultural transformation centered on customer-centric innovation. During his time as CEO, Cadence more than doubled its revenue and expanded operating margins.

“Lip-Bu is an exceptional leader whose technology industry expertise, deep relationships across the product and foundry ecosystems and proven track record of creating shareholder value is exactly what Intel needs in its next CEO,” says Frank Yeary, who served as interim executive chair during the search for a new CEO and will revert to being the independent chair. “Throughout his long and distinguished career, he’s earned a reputation as an innovator who puts customers at the heart of everything he does, delivers differentiated solutions to win in the market and builds high-performance cultures to achieve success. Like many across the industry, I’ve worked closely with Lip-Bu in the past and seen firsthand how his relentless attention to customers drives innovation and success.”