AMD promotes Dirk Meyer to President and COO

AMD announced today that Dirk Meyer has been promoted to president and chief operating officer of AMD. Meyer previously served as president and chief operating officer of AMD’s Microprocessor Solutions Sector (MSS) business. He will share the leadership and management of AMD with Hector Ruiz, who relinquishes the president title and now is AMD chief executive officer and chairman of the board. Ruiz will continue to be fully engaged in his role as chief executive officer and chairman of the board.

“Dirk has played an essential role in AMD’s rise to the position of technology and innovation leader in the microprocessor industry,” said Ruiz. “He has made amazing progress with our microprocessor business, making it the envy of our industry. His leadership, operational skills and business acumen have positioned the company for long-term, sustainable growth, and I’m very pleased that AMD now will benefit from those skills on an even grander scale.”

“I’m honored and excited to assume this new leadership role at AMD,” said Meyer. “During my time at AMD, we’ve overcome many hurdles to become a driving force in the microprocessor industry. Still, more challenges and opportunities are ahead of us, and I plan to help AMD capitalize on those opportunities to change the competitive dynamics of the microprocessor industry and continue our sustained growth. My new position also gives Hector more bandwidth to focus on leading the company as CEO.”

Meyer, 44, joined AMD in 1995 and in 1996 was promoted to director of engineering for the AMD Athlon™ microprocessor development program in Austin, Texas. In 1999, Meyer was promoted to the position of vice president of engineering for the Computation Products Group (CPG). In 2001, Meyer was promoted to group vice president of CPG. In 2002, he was named senior vice president of CPG and was named an executive officer of AMD. In 2004, he was promoted to executive vice president of CPG and in 2005 was appointed president and chief operating officer of AMD’s Microprocessor Solutions Sector.

Before joining AMD, Meyer worked at Digital Equipment Corporation for nearly a decade and was co-architect of the Alpha 21064 and 21264 microprocessors.

Meyer’s microprocessor industry experience includes tenures at not only AMD and Digital but also Intel Corporation. Over the years, he has been involved in the design of x86, Alpha, VAX, and embedded processors.

One of the world’s leading microprocessor design innovators, Meyer was awarded the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Maurice Wilkes Award for his significant architectural contributions to the Alpha and x86 microprocessor designs.

Meyer graduated from the University of Illinois, where he received a bachelor's degree in computer engineering. He also received a master's degree in business administration from Boston University.