Intel reshuffles its executive leadership team as its former co-CEO departs – News

Intel Corp. Chief Executive Lip-Bu Tan has made sweeping changes to his executive leadership team, waving goodbye to former interim co-CEO Michelle Johnston Holthaus and announcing a series of new appointments.

The changes come as Tan intensifies his efforts to transform the struggling chipmaker. Holthaus, who was serving as CEO of Intel Products, appears to have resigned from her role at the company, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. During her three-decade tenure, she held a number of senior positions at the chipmaker, including serving as its co-CEO for several months in the wake of former CEO Pat Gelsinger’s ousting last year.

As CEO of Intel Products, Holthaus was responsible for leading the teams that encompass Intel’s client computing, artificial intelligence, data center and network edge groups. According to the Journal, she has resigned for “good reason,” after seeing a material reduction in her duties, responsibilities, salary and target annual bonus. However, she will remain at the chipmaker in an advisory capacity until March 2026 to help ensure a smooth transition, Intel said.

The departure of Holthaus isn’t a huge surprise, as Tan had previously said he is planning to flatten the company’s leadership team and ensure that its most important business groups report directly to him, while also cutting jobs to streamline the company’s operations.

As part of the reshuffle, Intel has hired Kevork Kechichian to lead its data center business group across cloud and enterprise, where he will be responsible for the ongoing development of the Intel Xeon processor family. Kechichian joins the company from the chip design outfit Arm Holdings Plc, where he most recently served as executive vice president of engineering. Prior to Arm, he held key engineering roles at Qualcomm Inc. and NXP Semiconductors N.V.

Meanwhile, Tan has decided to hand Senior Vice President Srinivasan Iyengar an expanded role as leader of a newly established central engineering group at the company. In this new role, Iyengar, who is also an Intel fellow, will be tasked with leading horizontal engineering functions and building a new custom silicon business to serve external customers.

Naga Chandrasekaran, who currently serves as executive vice president and chief technology and operations officer of Intel Foundry, is gaining an even longer title, with his role being expanded to include Intel Foundry Services. The idea is to create a more integrated leadership structure that spans development, manufacturing and go-to-market functions, Intel said.

Finally, longtime Intel employee Jim Johnson has been named senior vice president and general manager of the company’s client computing group, having held that role on an interim basis for several months prior.

In his now permanent position, Johnson will be tasked with fostering growth in Intel’s personal computing and edge computing businesses. It’s a well-earned promotion for Johnson, who previously held senior engineering roles in the company’s technology and manufacturing and networking and communications groups.

The appointments are designed to support a new strategy that aims to strengthen Intel’s core product offerings and foster a culture of engineering across the business, the company said in a statement. In their new roles, Kechichian, Iyengar, Chandrasekaran and Johnson will all report directly to Tan, the company added.

The changes come at a time of great uncertainty for the chipmaker, which has been bleeding money for years following its failure to make its mark in the AI industry and rising competition in key markets such as PCs and servers. Last month, U.S. President Donald Trump said he wants the government to take a 10% stake in the company, having earlier called on Tan to resign due to a “conflict of interest” regarding his investments in Chinese chipmakers.

Photo: Intel