Intel spent around $10 million in bonus payments alone to bring Venkata “Murthy” Renduchintala in as president of the Client and Internet of Things (IoT) Businesses and Systems Architecture Group. But last week, according to a leaked internal memo obtained by The Oregonian’s Mike Rogoway on Wednesday, Renduchintala sent a critical message to Intel’s senior executives.
Renduchintala shakes up senior management
The former Qualcomm co-president Intel poached last year wrote in a note sent to Intel’s senior management: “Over the last three months I have conducted numerous project reviews with our execution teams, and there is a clear trend that has emerged in these reviews – a lack of product/customer focus in execution that is creating schedule and competitiveness gaps in our products.”
The memo said that Renduchintala is creating three-person leadership teams for each of the new products under development and looking for outside talent to join the company. Also he had urged the executive team to spend more time improving the company’s focus on the needs of customers.
This memo is the most recent bit of evidence of Renduchintala’s growing power within Intel. In November, the chip making giant brought Renduchintala in to control the newly created group that looks after its largest revenue-generating businesses. These businesses include PC and the Internet of Things.
As of now, there has been no comment from Intel about the matter.
Growing power within Intel
Two of Intel’s longtime executives, Doug Davis and Kirk Skaugen, who were leading the company’s PC and IoT businesses, left recently. After Renduchintala was hired, both of them were put under his management. Aicha Evans, who was leading Intel’s mobile chip business and was reported to have departed two weeks ago, was also under Renduchintala.
All these events suggest that Intel CEO Brian Krzanich is quite serious about depending on outside talent to bring a positive change in the company’s stagnant growth. Over the past year, a number of senior level executives from the outside have been hired by the chip maker–a big change from its tradition of promoting from within. Some even believe Renduchintala to be the leading candidate to succeed Krzanich in the future, says a report from Business Insider.
At 10:40 a.m. Eastern, Intel shares were down 1.48% at $31.65. Year to date, the stock is down by almost 10%, while in the last year, it is up by almost 1%.
