Intel Names "Long Term" Successor To Technology Development Chief. Why & Why Now?

In a highly unusual article published in the Oregonian on October 24, we learn that Intel has picked a “long-term” successor to its Technology Development chief, Dr. Ann Kelleher

According to the article,

CEO Pat Gelsinger said Kelleher’s successor is Navid Shahriari, who jointly runs Intel’s design engineering operation from Arizona. Gelsinger didn’t say how much longer Kelleher will remain with the company.

Apparently, the news was shared with manufacturing employees in email that was likely leaked to the Oregonian. They followed with up with Intel’s public relations team which helpfully replied to basically confirm the news. The only other detail that we could glean from the report was the following:

“Ann isn’t going anywhere. Given the importance of TD (technology development), we have a robust long-term succession planning process,”

Is it just me or does “Ann isn’t going anywhere” thing sound vaguely ominous when you look at it from a certain perspective? Just kidding…

Rather curiously, Tom’s Hardware ran this story with a positive spin, claiming it to be proof that intel does not give up on its fabs..

It’s a little tricky to see how they managed to come up with this angle to be honest.

Succession planning is nothing new, it happens all the time, for better or worse. It just doesn’t happen in public, it’s more of a behind closed doors kind of thing. Furthermore, it’s normally a private matter, between an employee and their manager, something that would be discussed in a performance review perhaps, and documented in a formal development plan with a roadmap, milestones etc. The more senior the role, the more the details are kept under wraps.

As senior roles at Intel go, Ms. Kelleher is arguably Intel’s most important employee, given that she has been the one tasked with delivering on Mr. Gelsinger’s “5N4Y” strategy. That strategy will come to its logical conclusion next year when A18 goes (supposedly) into volume production.

Against this backdrop, the “leaked” news of Ms. Kelleher’s successor is highly unusual from a number of different perspectives, most notably:

#1 Timing. Why now?

#2 Method of communication. Why not a press release? Why not mention it in the upcoming earnings call?

#3 Was there a successor all along? If so, who and what happened to him/her? If not, then why not?

What’s really going on here? Let’s dig in….