Intel promotes CFO Bob Swan to CEO position following six-month search for Krzanich's repl...

AppleInsiderAppleInsider
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Intel has announced it is retaining interim CEO Bob Swan as the new permanent head of the company following the departure of Brian Krzanich, with the former CFO insisting the core strategy of the chip producer won't be changing while at the same time working to improve on execution.

Intel CEO Bob Swan
Intel CEO Bob Swan


Announced on Thursday, Bob Swan is now confirmed as the full-time replacement CEO for Intel. Following a six-month search for a new chief, one that reportedly included Apple hardware lead Johny Srouji as one of the potential candidates for the role, Intel's board eventually exhausted all avenues and elected to stick with the interim CEO on a more permanent basis.

Following the managerial change, Intel is now on the hunt for a replacement chief financial officer, to take over the role that Bob Swan vacated. For the moment, vice president of Finance and director of Intel's Corporate Planning and Reporting Todd Underwood will be the interim CFO while the search continues.

Previous CEO Brian Krzanich resigned in June after five years in the position. At the time, the chip producer advised Krzanich resigned following the revelation he had a "past consensual relationship" with a company employee, which violated Intel's non-fraternization policy for managers.

In his first-day email to Intel employees, customers, and partners, Swan writes he intends to focus on four "critical imperatives" for the company over the coming months. Two of the imperatives is to be "bold and fearless" in the market, and to evolve the company's powerful culture" and come together as "One Intel."

Swan insists the "core strategy is not changing" for the company. "We've embarked on what we believe can be the most successful transformation in corporate history," writes Swan, suggesting Intel is evolving from a PC-centric firm to a data-centric version.

Possibly the most important of the four items on the list is that the company's "execution must improve. And it will. Our customers are counting on us."

It is likely that Swan is referencing multiple elements in this statement, such as the growth of competitors in the mobile space while Intel falls behind, and continued issues with its 10-nanometer chip fabrication process that has been stymied by repeated yield issues and other delays over the last few years.

In last week's financial results, Intel reported lower-than-expected revenue of $18.7 billion, narrowly missing analyst expectations of $19.01 billion. The company blamed "weaker modem demand," notable due to it being a major modem supplier to Apple, as well as a slowdown in China and a "weaker NAND environment."

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Intel will never see the likes of Andy Grove again. They’ve been coasting for too long.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,913member
    Time will tell but what a dumb thing Intel did !! Why can't Intel find a Engineer to lead the company ? Now, looking back, Intel made stupidest mistake to fire Brian Krzanich for having consensual relationship with one of the employee. This is one reason companies in rest of world make better progress than leading companies in USA because we push good leaders out for smaller mistake.
    AppleExposedwilliamlondon
  • Reply 3 of 8
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    So … no one applied for the job?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 8
    AppleExposedAppleExposed Posts: 1,805unconfirmed, member
    wood1208 said:
    Time will tell but what a dumb thing Intel did !! Why can't Intel find a Engineer to lead the company ? Now, looking back, Intel made stupidest mistake to fire Brian Krzanich for having consensual relationship with one of the employee. This is one reason companies in rest of world make better progress than leading companies in USA because we push good leaders out for smaller mistake.
    American sexism is STRONG. Even a girl flirting with a guy can get him fired.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 8
    StrangeDaysStrangeDays Posts: 12,877member
    wood1208 said:
    Time will tell but what a dumb thing Intel did !! Why can't Intel find a Engineer to lead the company ? Now, looking back, Intel made stupidest mistake to fire Brian Krzanich for having consensual relationship with one of the employee. This is one reason companies in rest of world make better progress than leading companies in USA because we push good leaders out for smaller mistake.
    American sexism is STRONG. Even a girl flirting with a guy can get him fired.
    Source? It’s the having-sex-with-your-workers part that gets men fired. If you’re the boss and someone reports to you, it is unfair to them and other workers to engage in a sexual relationship with that report. This is not controversial. 
    edited January 2019 dewmefastasleep
  • Reply 6 of 8
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    “At the time, the chip producer advised Krzanich resigned following the revelation he had a "past consensual relationship" with a company employee, which violated Intel's non-fraternization policy for managers.”

    Now this seems a company rule directly violating human rights and void as a consequence. 
  • Reply 7 of 8
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,362member
    The most desirable qualities I look for in a CEO are strategic vision and leadership. At a superficial level this guy sure sounds like a bean counter. His focus on "execution" is probably driven by deep rooted frustration that Intel is not "doing things right." If he was a leader focused on vision and strategy I think he'd be much more concerned about Intel "doing the right things." There's nothing preventing him from acquiring strategic vision. Successful organizations need both strategic vision and operational execution, and like early Apple, the combination can be embodied in a pair or a collection of people working together, e.g., Jobs primarily focused on strategy and vision and Wozniak primarily focused on execution. It need not be a single person with expertise in both, but in-fact, visionaries who understand the nuances of execution and operational specialists who understand where strategy must be served are the kind of people you want on your team. As far as hiring a technologist or engineer for the CEO position, I'm not so sure that would be any better than hiring a bean counter who has a good amount of domain expertise in the business at hand. Most technologists that I've worked with have been very tactical and focused on "doing things right," oftentimes with obsessive precision that makes attaining predictable end-dates a monumental struggle. But with maturity, experience, and exposure to real customers and the larger life cycle of products and service some engineers do acquire more strategic understanding. Andy Grove had the rare combination of vision, strategy, and execution. These kind of unicorns just don't come along very often. Even Tim Cook is primarily an operational and execution focused guy, with strong people leadership, but he's surrounded himself with a critical mass of strong visionaries to keep Apple evolving and innovating while also being very profitable. He's also learned a lot and put what he's learned to good effect.   
  • Reply 8 of 8
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    wood1208 said:
    Time will tell but what a dumb thing Intel did !! Why can't Intel find a Engineer to lead the company ? Now, looking back, Intel made stupidest mistake to fire Brian Krzanich for having consensual relationship with one of the employee. This is one reason companies in rest of world make better progress than leading companies in USA because we push good leaders out for smaller mistake.
    American sexism is STRONG. Even a girl flirting with a guy can get him fired.
    Source? It’s the having-sex-with-your-workers part that gets men fired. If you’re the boss and someone reports to you, it is unfair to them and other workers to engage in a sexual relationship with that report. This is not controversial. 
    What about Bill Gates? 

    Shortly after graduating from college, Melinda joined Microsoft and began dating CEO Bill Gates a few months later.

    Gates was still CEO when Melinda was hired, right?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Gates
    dewmewatto_cobra
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