VMWare’s Pat Gelsinger to be new Intel CEO

Santa Clara headquartered chipmaker Intel on Wednesday announced that the CEO of VMware Pat Gelsinger will replace Bob Swan to take charge of the company. 

Swan will remain the Intel CEO until February 15, according to a statement.

Gelsinger, who served as the CEO of VMWare for eight and half years from 2012, will also join the Intel board of directors before formally moving to the role in mid-February. 

In a separate statement, VMware announced that its board of directors has begun a search for a CEO following a decision by Gelsinger to step down from the position, effective February 12, 2021.

Prior to VMware, Gelsinger served as the president and COO of EMC’s Information Infrastructure products, overseeing engineering and operations for Information storage, backup, recovery and data computing.

He has spent close to 30 years at Intel, where he started his career in October 1979. Among various roles, he was also the company’s first chief technology officer, a post he served in between 2000 and 2005, and was also involved in key technology developments such as Wi-Fi and the USB.

“I was 18 years old when I joined Intel, fresh out of the Lincoln Technical Institute,”  Gelsinger said. He is an alumnus of Santa Clara University and Stanford University. 

“After careful consideration, the board concluded that now is the right time to make this leadership change to draw on Pat’s technology and engineering expertise during this critical period of transformation at Intel,” Omar Ishrak, independent chairman of the Intel board said in the statement.

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Ishrak added that Gelsinger and the rest of the leadership team would help in Intel’s strategy to transform from a CPU to a multi-architecture XPU company.

XPU is a term coined by Intel to refer to pivoting away from a CPU company, to focus more on solutions for software, networking, storage, AI (artificial intelligence) and data centers.

Intel clarified that the change of the CEO was unrelated to its 2020 financial performance. In the third quarter of 2020, the company reported a 4% year-on-year decrease in revenue, while its data centric revenues decreased by 10%.

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However, Intel said that it expected its fourth quarter revenues to exceed its prior guidance provided on October 22 last year, which was at 5%. The fourth quarter results are expected to be announced on January 21.