Intel Goes Back to Roots With Gelsinger to Regain Chip Lead
- 30-year veteran of Intel takes over CEO role from Swan
- New leader has technical experience company desperately needs
Even after he left Intel Corp. in 2009, Pat Gelsinger couldn’t stop talking about the company he’d worked at since he was a teenager.
When asked about the chipmaker, he would regale listeners with stories of how his mentor and former Intel boss Andy Grove had shaped him. Now, back as chief executive officer, Gelsinger has the chance to re-establish a leadership approach that made Intel the dominant chipmaker, while bringing lessons learned elsewhere to help the company recover from its biggest crisis in at least a decade.
The 59 year-old rejoins as the company confronts rivals selling better products and big customers developing their own semiconductors. His main challenge is to fix Intel’s manufacturing stumbles, which former CEOs Bob Swan and Brian Krzanich failed to do.