Intel in the middle of an ambitious four-year plan to restore its slipping market leadership
After a 40-year run, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired from the company and stepped down from the board of directors, effective Dec. 1, 2024. David Zinsner, the chipmaker’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Michelle (MJ) Johnston Holthaus, CEO of Intel Products as interim co-chief executive officers while a the board searches for a new CEO.
Gelsinger started at Intel in 1979 at the age of 18, eventually become its first chief technology officer in 2001. After spending time away from the company between 2009 and 2021 to serve as the CEO of VMware and president and chief operating officer (COO) at EMC, he ultimately returned to Intel in 2021 as the company’s CEO.
“Leading Intel has been the honor of my lifetime — this group of people is among the best and the brightest in the business, and I’m honored to call each and every one a colleague,” said Gelsinger. “Today is, of course, bittersweet as this company has been my life for the bulk of my working career. I can look back with pride at all that we have accomplished together. It has been a challenging year for all of us as we have made tough but necessary decisions to position Intel for the current market dynamics. I am forever grateful for the many colleagues around the world who I have worked with as part of the Intel family.”
Despite his long career at Intel, Gelsinger was only at the helm for four years and at the time of his departure, Gelsinger was in the middle of orchestrating an ambitious four-year plan to restore the chipmaker’s slipping market leadership.
The five nodes in four years (5N4Y) strategy was announced in July 2021 and was meant to bolster Intel Foundry Services, announced in March 2021, which would see the semiconductor giant evolve its integrated design/build model to open up manufacturing capacity to fabless competitors. At the time of the 5N4Y announcement, Gelsinger said that the company is “accelerating our innovation roadmap to ensure we are on a clear path to performance leadership by 2025. We are leveraging our unparalleled pipeline of innovation to deliver technology advances from the transistor up to the system level. Until the period table is exhausted, we will be relentless in our pursuit of Moore’s Law and our path to innovate with the magic of silicon.”
The company, though, continues to face numerous macro headwinds, in part related to its position in artificial intelligence (AI) relative to AMD, NVIDIA and others.
Following Gelsinger departure, Frank Yeary, independent chair of the board of Intel, has been named interim executive chair during the period of transition. “While we have made significant progress in regaining manufacturing competitiveness and building the capabilities to be a world-class foundry, we know that we have much more work to do at the company and are committed to restoring investor confidence,” Yeary said in a release.
He continued: “With Dave and MJ’s leadership, we will continue to act with urgency on our priorities: simplifying and strengthening our product portfolio and advancing our manufacturing and foundry capabilities while optimizing our operating expenses and capital. We are working to create a leaner, simpler, more agile Intel.”
