Intel has announced sweeping leadership changes as CEO Lip-Bu Tan accelerates efforts to revive the struggling U.S. chipmaker, including the departure of products chief Michelle Johnston Holthaus after three decades at the company.
Holthaus, who previously served as interim co-CEO following the ouster of Pat Gelsinger last year, will stay on as a strategic adviser before exiting. “Michelle’s leadership and decades of service have been instrumental in shaping Intel,” the company said in a statement Monday.
The shake-up also brings in Kevork Kechichian, a veteran of Arm, NXP Semiconductors and Qualcomm, who will serve as executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s data center group. A new central engineering unit has been created under senior vice president Srinivasan Iyengar, tasked with building a custom silicon business.
Other changes include expanding the role of Naga Chandrasekaran, Intel’s chief technology and operations officer, to cover Foundry Services, and appointing Jim Johnson as general manager of the client computing group.
The moves come as Intel faces mounting competitive and political pressure. U.S. President Donald Trump recently announced plans for the government to take a 10% stake in the company and publicly called for Tan to resign over conflicts of interest.
