AMD recently announced that its board of directors has appointed Dr. Lisa Su as president and chief executive officer and member of the board of directors, effective immediately.
Dr. Su, 44, succeeds Rory Read, 52, who has stepped down as president and chief executive officer, and member of the board of directors, as part of a transition plan. Read will support the transition in an advisory role, remaining with the company through the end of 2014.
Dr. Lisa Su
“Leadership succession planning has been a joint effort between Rory and the board and we felt that Lisa’s expertise and proven leadership in the global semiconductor industry make this an ideal time for her to lead the company,” said Bruce Claflin, chairman of AMD’s board of directors.
Su will continue the diversification strategy Read put in place.
During the last three years, AMD has made significant progress in financial and operational performance. The company returned to non-GAAP profitability and materially diversified its business. Since 2012, AMD has reduced operating expenditures by approximately 30 percent and maintained cash at near an optimal level of $1 billion. AMD also improved its balance sheet by re-profiling its debt with no significant debt coming due until 2019.
Dr. Su joined AMD in 2012 and was most recently chief operating officer responsible for integrating AMD’s business units, sales, global operations and infrastructure enablement teams into a single market-facing organization responsible for all aspects of product strategy, product execution, sales and operations. Previously, she was senior vice president and general manager, Global Business Units, responsible for the company’s product strategy, product definition and business plans.
Prior to joining AMD, Dr. Su served as senior vice president and general manager, Networking and Multimedia at Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., and was responsible for global strategy, marketing and engineering for the company’s embedded communications and applications processor business.
Dr. Su joined Freescale in 2007 as chief technology officer, where she led the company’s technology roadmap and research and development efforts. Prior to her tenure at Freescale, Dr. Su spent 13 years with IBM in various engineering and business leadership positions, including vice president of the Semiconductor Research and Development Center responsible for the strategic direction of IBM’s silicon technologies, joint development alliances and semiconductor R&D operations.
Prior to IBM, she was a member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments in the Semiconductor Process and Device Center.
Dr. Su received bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was named Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers in 2009. She has published more than 40 technical articles and was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) in 2009. Dr. Su was named “2014 Executive of the Year” at the EETimes and EDN 2014 ACE Awards and was honored in MIT Technology Review’s Top 100 Young Innovators in 2002. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Analog Devices since 2012.
AMD is the only remaining challenger to Intel’s total domination in the x86 microprocessor market.
