Intel president steps down as she wants a CEO position

Today Intel Corporation's CEO, Brian Krzanich, announced a series of leadership and organizational changes in a message to employees.

Intel President Renée James informed the board that she will be stepping down as President of Intel to pursue an external CEO role. She has agreed to stay at Intel until January in order to transition the Executive Office. In connection with today's news, James today distributed an employee message about her plans.

In addition, other leadership and organizational changes that are being made to streamline operations and better position Intel for growth include:

Arvind Sodhani, President of Intel Capital, will retire in January after a distinguished 35-year career with the company. President of Mergers and Acquisitions Wendell Brooks will take an expanded role to also become President of Intel Capital. Merging these teams under one leader will allow clear focus across all investment opportunities for Intel.

On July 1, the Intel Security organization – formerly the independent McAfee division – was formally integrated into Intel operations under the leadership of General Manager Chris Young. This integration will deliver better technologies for our customers and more effective operations that enable Intel Security to advance the state of security across the industry.

Intel Communication and Devices Group General Manager Aicha Evans has been elevated to the company's Management Committee, reflecting the leadership role she plays across Intel's business and the importance of communication and mobility to the company's growth strategy and product portfolio.

Josh Walden, General Manager of Intel's New Technology Group, now leads all product and research teams that create and deploy new technology categories, such as interactive computing devices, perceptual computing and wearable devices. He is responsible for expanding the power of Moore's Law into entirely new categories.

Associated with these changes, Intel executives Hermann Eul and Mike Bell will leave the company after a transition period.

"We are aligning our leadership structure to continue to become more efficient in order to deliver the benefits of our strategy even faster than before," said Krzanich.

"Over the past 28 years, Renée has contributed immeasurably to Intel," he continued. "On behalf of the Board and management team, we sincerely thank Renée for her tireless efforts toward building the business that we have today, and we fully support her in this decision."

As all of you have heard from Brian, I have made the very difficult decision to step down as President of Intel in order to pursue an external CEO role . When Brian and I were appointed to our current roles, I knew then that being the leader of a company was something that I desired as part of my own leadership journey. Now is the right time for me to take that next step.