Dive Brief:
- Brian Krzanich stepped down as CEO and member of the board of directors of Intel on Thursday, according to a company announcement. Krzanich violated Intel's non-fraternizatoin policy for managers by having a "past consensual relationship" with an employee.
- Former CFO Robert Swan will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately, until a replacement is found. Intel will assess internal and external candidates for the succession process, according to the announcement.
- The company also announced adjusted expectations for Q2 earnings, to be announced late July, with a record $16.9 billion in revenue for the quarter. Share prices saw a small drop following the announcement Thursday morning.
Dive Insight:
After trudging through the fallout of hardware vulnerabilities that rocked the computing industry earlier this year, an HR violation was a surprise takedown of the well-known CEO. Krzanich joined the company in 1982 as an engineer and rose through the ranks to become CEO in 2013.
Krzanich was the subject of no shortage of criticism in 2018 as Intel disclosed the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, then subsequently and repeatedly botched the patching process. The company also became the subject of an EEOC investigation earlier this month following reports of age discrimination in layoffs.
The new CEO will have to continue Intel's long path forward to rebuild trust with consumers and enterprise partners.
With the company's 50th anniversary fast approaching in July, Intel is working to become a "50/50 company" where revenue is split equally between PCs and new growth markets, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and the cloud.
