December 4, 2024 – Following the announcement of CEO Pat Gelsinger’s retirement, Intel has initiated a review of several external candidates, including former board member Lip-Bu Tan, for the top job, according to sources familiar with the matter. The discussions regarding the new CEO are still in their early stages, and no candidate has been finalized yet.
Intel recently declared that Executive Vice President and CFO David Zinsner, along with Michelle Johnston Holthaus, will serve as interim co-CEOs while the board searches for a permanent replacement.
As reported earlier, on Monday (December 2nd), Intel declared that CEO Pat Gelsinger retired on December 1st and resigned from the company’s board. Gelsinger’s sudden retirement surprised the market, but investors interpreted it as a positive signal, sending Intel’s shares up by about 6% on Monday.
Sources revealed that during last week’s board meeting, tensions between Pat Gelsinger and the board reached an irreversible point. The board expressed dissatisfaction with Gelsinger’s leadership, particularly his failure to effectively compete with NVIDIA, and lacked confidence in his recovery plan. Frank Yeary, the longest-serving board member, played a pivotal role in Gelsinger’s ouster and will now oversee the selection of a new CEO.
Gelsinger, 63, has been with Intel for 33 years. He joined as a Quality Assurance Engineer in 1979 and rose through the ranks, becoming the youngest Vice President in the company’s history in 1993 and being appointed as Intel’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in 2001. He left Intel in 2009 to join EMC and VMware. In 2021, he returned to Intel as CEO during a period of pressure from activist investors demanding reorganization.
