Intel has gone outside for another top executive, bringing in Archana “Archie” Deskus to be the chipmaker’s new chief information officer.
Intel once emphasized hiring from within, emphasizing the company’s distinctive corporate culture and the specialized nature of the semiconductor business.
That’s changed over the past several years, though, and Intel’s top ranks are now filled with leaders hired from outside the company. The new hires bring a more diverse set of skills as the chipmaker works to expand its business beyond its historical reliance on microprocessors for PCs and laptops.
Deskus had been CIO at Hewlett Packard Enterprise and before that held the same title at industrial service company Baker Hughes. Intel said she will work either at corporate headquarters in California or at the company’s Arizona site. Prior Intel CIO Paula Tolliver left the company in October after a little more than three years.
Other Intel executives who are relatively new to the company include
• CEO Bob Swan, who joined Intel as CFO in 2016 from the investment firm General Atlantic. He had previously been eBay’s CFO.
• CFO George Davis, whom Intel hired last year from Qualcomm
• Data center Vice President Craig Barratt, who joined Intel last year when it acquired Barefoot Networks, where Barratt had been CEO
• Chief Communications Officer Claire Dixon, hired in 2019 from VMware
• Technology Vice President Jim Keller, who joined Intel in 2018 after working at Tesla, AMD and Apple.
Intel is Oregon’s largest corporate employer, with 20,000 employees at its Washington County campuses. Few of the new executives work in Oregon, though the company continues expanding its research and manufacturing operations here.
Intel’s share price closed Monday at $59.59, up 21% in the past year and near its highest point since the dot-com era. The company is benefitting from soaring demand from data centers and from a resilient PC market.
