Intel has announced that the company’s CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired from the company and has stepped down from the board of directors effective December 1st, 2024. He was appointed as CEO and a member of the company’s board of directors in February 2021.
He has more than four decades of technology leadership and experience driving innovation, with 30 of those years serving in Intel engineering and executive roles.
Gelsinger began his career in 1979 at Intel, becoming its first chief technology officer and serving as senior vice president and the general manager of the Digital Enterprise Group.
He managed the creation of key industry technologies like USB and Wi-Fi. He was the architect of the original 80486 processor, led 14 microprocessor programs and played key roles in the Intel Core and Intel Xeon processor families, leading to Intel becoming the world’s pre-eminent microprocessor supplier.
New interim Co-CEOs
Intel has announced David Zinsner and Michelle (MJ) Johnston Holthaus, as interim co-chief executive officers while the board of directors conducts a search for a new CEO.
Zinsner is executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Holthaus has been appointed to the newly created position of CEO of Intel Products, a group that encompasses the company’s Client Computing Group (CCG), Data Center and AI Group (DCAI) and Network and Edge Group (NEX).
Frank Yeary, independent chair of the board of Intel, will become interim executive chair during the period of transition. Intel said that its Foundry leadership structure remains unchanged.
Intel said that the board has formed a search committee and will work diligently and expeditiously to find a permanent successor to Gelsinger.
Regarding the retirement, Pat Gelsinger said:
Leading Intel has been the honor of my lifetime – this group of people is among the best and the brightest in the business, and I’m honored to call each and every one a colleague. Today is, of course, bittersweet as this company has been my life for the bulk of my working career. I can look back with pride at all that we have accomplished together. It has been a challenging year for all of us as we have made tough but necessary decisions to position Intel for the current market dynamics. I am forever grateful for the many colleagues around the world who I have worked with as part of the Intel family.