Management Reshuffle at AMD Results in Departure of Two Top Executives

A management reshuffle at chip manufacturing company Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has resulted in two executives at the senior level leaving the company. As part of the reshuffle, the executive vice president of the company’s computing solutions group, Mario Rivas and former chief talent officer and senior vice president Michel Cadieux are moving out of the company.

Making the announcement about the two departures, the company said the two senior executives of AMD were moving out ‘to pursue other opportunities’. The two executives would not be making any comments, according to a spokesman.

The reshuffle has come at a time when the company has been trying to offset the negative impact of the delay in the entry of a new line of chips called Barcelona. The delay happened due a technical flaw in the chips, which was discovered after the company unveiled the product line to the world last September.

The late arrival of the Barcelona line of chips is just one of the issues that have dogged AMD in recent times. There have been other executives at the senior level that have made their way out of the company over the past one year. CTO and senior vice president Phil Hester submitted his resignation in April this year, while Henri Richard, the chief of sales, quit last summer to join Freescale Inc.

The company is also planning to scale down its work force and is looking to let 10% of it go, roughly 1,600 workers. It is also supposed to be engaging in talks to outsource at least a portion of its chip making operations.

As part of the current reshuffle, senior vice president Randy Allen would be taking charge of the computing solutions group. Allen had earlier been managing chips for servers and workstations. He was also looking after microprocessor engineering prior to his new assignment at AMD.

In a statement, the president and COO of AMD, Dirk Meyer, said the company was pushing ahead rapidly with the changes to ensure that it acquired a new shape in organizational terms, while boosting up the management team at the same time.

Speaking about the changes, Meyer said, “Placing experienced leaders in new, more focused roles will enhance our execution and progress towards sustained profitability and long-term success.”

Analysts have been busy trying to work out what the current reshuffle could mean. One of the analysts at Endpoint Technologies Associates, Roger Kay, said the changes implied that AMD was looking for a total overhaul of its management and organizational structure. “They are offering the remaining employees new jobs. Some of them don't fit the new jobs that well,” he said.