Three members of the Intel board will not be standing for re-election at the annual shareholders’ meeting in 2025, the chip manufacturer announced in an official statement on Thursday.
Since the end of last year, Intel has been reorganizing its board of directors to attract more expertise from the chip industry. Under new leadership, the company is attempting to regain its former position in the market.
With this change, Intel is reducing the board of directors to eleven members. Among the departing board members is Omar Ishrak, former CEO of Medtronic. Ishrak stepped down as chairman of the board in January 2023, but remained on as a regular member. Tsu-Jae King Liu, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, former professor of public health and health inequality at the University of Pennsylvania, are also leaving the board.
Intel appointed Eric Meurice, former CEO of ASML, and Steve Sanghi, interim CEO of Microchip Technology, in December to strengthen the board. These appointments followed the departure of former CEO Pat Gelsinger.
This has significantly changed the composition of the board. Whereas the board previously consisted of people with backgrounds in academic institutions, finance, medical technology and aviation, Intel is now more emphatically opting for expertise within the semiconductor industry. According to chairman Frank Yeary, Intel wants to put together a board that has the right combination of skills, qualifications and technical knowledge.
Focus on foundry activities continues
In a letter to shareholders on Thursday, the new Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said that he believes it is important to focus not only on Intel’s product development but also on the division for contractual chip production (the foundry activities). This last component is an essential element of the recovery plan previously introduced under former CEO Gelsinger.
Intel also announced that Gelsinger received a severance package totaling approximately 7.9 million dollars upon his departure and relinquished all of his non-vested stock options.
Tan left the board in August of last year due to differences of opinion about the company’s recovery plan but returned as a director when he was appointed CEO. In his explanation, he indicated that he would continue to focus on implementing the cost-cutting plan previously set up by Gelsinger. This plan includes simplifying the product range, reducing the complexity of the organization, reducing operational expenses and investments, and reducing the workforce by 15 percent.