Intel appoints CFO Robert Swan as CEO

Intel has named its chief financial officer Robert Swan as its new CEO. The CFO already took over the duties of CEO Brian Krzanich, who left in June last year, but has now been definitively appointed as director.

With his appointment, Robert ‘Bob’ Swan is the seventh CEO in Intel’s 50th anniversary. He also sits on the chip company’s board of directors. Swan is actually continuing his work: he has been the interim CEO at Intel for seven months.

He got that position in June last year, when the then CEO of Intel, Brian Krzanich, had to leave the field because he had an extramarital relationship with a female employee of the company. Under Intel’s rules, that was prohibited. Until that time, Swan had been CFO at Intel since October 2016. Before that he was, among other things, CFO at eBay.

Due to the transfer of Swan, Intel is now looking for a new CFO. For the time being, Todd Underwood, vice president of the Finance Department and executive of Corporate Planning and Reporting, will take over his duties.

With Swan, Intel this time does not have a CEO with a technical background, like Krzanich. Nor is he an old-timer Intel employee, like Krzanich’s predecessor Paul Otellini. In an email to employees, Swan says he is sticking to Intel’s course of moving from a PC-driven company to a data-driven company. He does state that execution needs to improve and that customers are counting on Intel, probably referring to the postponement of the 10nm production of chips and the current capacity problems with 14nm production. As a result, PC manufacturers are struggling to get cheaper Intel processors in particular.