Intel decides on names a 7th CEO in its 50-year history-- and it is no other than CFO Bob Swan, the man leading the company in the interim for the past 7 months since the resignation of previous CEO Brian Krzanich.
Chipzilla announced the immediate resignation of Krzanich on June 2018, after learning he had a "consensual relationship" with a fellow employee, a violation of company non-fraternisation policies.
Swan has been Intel CFO since 2016, and comes from a primarily financial and investment background. He was CFO of eBay for 9 years, starting in 2006, before joining venture capital General Atlantic. Swan was also the CFO, COO and CEO of Webvan, a grocery delivery startup that was one of the many victims of the 2000 dot-com market crash.
“When I was first named interim CEO, I was immediately focused on running the company and working with our customers," Swan says. "When the board approached me to take on the role permanently, I jumped at the chance to lead this special company. This is an exciting time for Intel-- 2018 was an outstanding year and we are in the midst of transforming the company to pursue our biggest market opportunity ever. I’m honored to have the chance to continue working alongside our board, our leadership team, and our more than 107000 superb employees as we take the company forward.”
Analysts and the media had plenty of time to speculate as to who Chipzilla would choose as leader. Datacentre business leader Navind Shenoy was reportedly being considered, together with AMD CEO Lisa Su and former GlobalFoundries CEO Sanjay Jha. Other names floated around by the media include Intel product exec Vekata Renduchintala and Apple senior VP of hardware technologies Johny Srouji.
