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Intel appoints Robert Swan as new chief executive after seven month search
Intel has promoted its former chief financial officer Robert Swan to chief executive seven months after its former boss Brian Krzanich quit over a relationship with another employee.
Mr Swan, who had been the company's interim chief executive since the end of June last year after Mr Krzanich's sudden departure, has been at Intel since 2016 when he joined as chief financial officer from General Atlantic.
Mr Krzanich was forced to step down following an investigation by Intel into a consensual past relationship with another employee, which breached its company policies.
It marks the end of a difficult hunt to replace the former boss. Mr Swan initially claimed he was not interested in the job of leading Intel, while several other candidates have had their names in contention.
Intel's product head Venkata Renduchintala and Apple's hardware boss Johny Srouji were both reported to be in under consideration.
Mr Swan now faces the task of continuing to diversify Intel away from its PC-roots and into new areas of artificial intelligence, cloud data and driverless car technology.
Mr Swan became the first outside chief financial officer to join Intel since 1983 when he arrived in 2016. He previously worked as chief financial officer of eBay between 2006 and 2015 and also held posts at HP and Northrup Grumman.
Mr Krzanich was not the only high profile exit from Intel in recent years. Its former chief strategy officer Aicha Evans left to join $3.2bn (£2.4bn) driverless car start-up Zoox as its chief executive.
In the past two years it has also seen the departures of its chief operating officer and senior vice president of its manufacturing unit.
While Intel has tried to launch new business lines not all have been successful. Intel announced it would "exit" its Saffron AI business in its last results. It also closed its wearable smart glasses group last year.
Intel's Mr Swan said: “When I was first named interim CEO, I was immediately focused on running the company and working with our customers. When the board approached me to take on the role permanently, I jumped at the chance to lead this special company.”
In its three-month results last week, Intel reported its revenues had climbed 9pc to $18.7bn, with full-year revenues of $71bn.