Intel has announced a series of top executive changes, including the departure of products chief Michelle Johnston Holthaus, at a time when CEO Lip-Bu Tan intensifies efforts to turn around the struggling US chip maker.
Holthaus, who will leave after more than three decades with Intel, had held numerous senior leadership roles, including interim co-CEO following the ouster of former CEO Pat Gelsinger last year. She will remain a strategic adviser over the coming months.
Tan is seeking to flatten the company’s leadership team, with most important chip groups reporting directly to him, while also slashing jobs to streamline operations.
Intel also said on Monday that Kevork Kechichian has joined as executive vice president and GM of the data centre group.
A chip industry veteran, Kechichian came from ARM, where he most recently was the executive vice president of engineering. He has also worked at NXP Semiconductors and Qualcomm.
Among other changes, Intel announced setting up of a new central engineering group, which will be led by Srinivasan Iyengar, a senior vice president. In the expanded role, Iyengar will build a new custom silicon business to serve a broad range of external customers.
Uncertain time
Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president and chief technology and operations officer of Intel Foundry, will expand his role to include Foundry Services, while Jim Johnson has been appointed as GM of Intel’s client computing group.
Read: Honey, I shrunk the chips – inside TSMC’s 2nm breakthrough
The announcements come at an uncertain time for Intel, with US President Donald Trump saying last month that the government would take a 10% stake in the company. Trump has also called for Tan to resign over conflicts of interest. — Zaheer Kachwala, (c) 2025 Reuters
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