Intel has announced that its chief financial officer Robert Swan is assuming the role of interim CEO because former CEO Brian Krzanich is resigning from his job as chief executive of the company. Krzanich is also leaving the board of directors.
In a statement, the company says the resignation is in response to a recently disclosed “past consensual relationship with an Intel employee.”
Intel has a policy that prevents managers from engaging in such relationships with employees, and the board says it’s “accepted Mr. Krzanich’s resignation,” although CNBC reports that he was “asked to resign.”
An investigation is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Intel snuck a little other news into its press release announcing Krzanich’s departure: the company is raising its financial expectations for the second quarter.
Krzanich has been with Intel since the early 80s, and he was appointed as CEO in 2013. Since then, he has overseen the chip maker at an interesting time, as Intel has faced renewed competition from AMD (in the form of its new Ryzen processors) and from new areas such as Qualcomm and other makers of ARM-based chips (which are now used in Chromebooks, servers, and even some Windows 10 notebooks and tablets).
During that time, Intel has tried to move beyond its roots as a company that makes chips for personal computers and focus on new technologies for cloud computing, IoT, and other hot trends. One of the most intriguing products to come out of Intel in recent years, for example, wasn’t a new processor. It was a new type of persistent storage that blurs the lines between RAM and SSDs.
It’s unclear what, if any, change in direction will accompany a change in leadership. But the decision to appoint an interim CEO rather than a formal replacement for Krzanich suggests the company is making this move in a bit of a hurry.
Intel’s Bio page for Krzanich, by the way, is now empty. But you can take a look at an archived version from last week at the Internet Archive.
Brian Krzanich is married to Brandee Krzanich and has two daughters.
Now that he has resigned, he will be able to spend more time with his family.
According to a New York Times story, he was going to host a fundraising event at his home in June 2016 for GOP Presidential candidate Donald J Trump, but it was canceled unexpectedly.
> “past consensual relationship with an Intel employee.”
A bit vague on the part of Intel… not sure how long ago, whether the relationship ended a while back or still ongoing… Was the CEO married while the relationship was ongoing? Wife making waves? If it ended a while back, maybe it’s the employee making waves. Something is definitely off.
Still, it’s a good policy to have for legal reasons but I doubt it’s enforced unless it puts a company at risk.
Having worked 3 years at Intel and only left because of Brian & co’s lack of direction caused numerous layoffs accross divisions, I can only express my total surprise that some private affair is what causes this guy to finally leave Intel.
Anyway, good riddance.
I am baffled as to why there would be an investigation. He had a relationship with an employee. That does not sound like it was harassment. It is against Intel policy so I understand asking him to resign.
Any time someone has a relationship with a subordinate, there is supposed to be an investigation. They need to make sure that someone in power doesn’t use their influence to create the relationship.
It’s a total smokescreen to fire the CEO and not cause panic on Wall Street, Intel is a company that does not give a dam about affairs and this happened some time ago according to their own words.
They don’t? You know this, how exactly? And you do realize that affairs tend to be carried out in secret, right?