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The CEO of chip maker AMD has resigned from the firm with the ‘mutual agreement’ of the Intel-rival’s board of directors.
The expected departure of Dirk Meyer was greeted by surprise by analysts with the firm’s CFO Thomas Seifert taking over at the top job while the firm finds a replacement for Meyer.
While the board denied that the change was due to any specific performance related issue, they nevertheless cited the desire to ‘accelerate growth’ as a leading reason for seeking out another CEO.
"The Board believes we have the opportunity to create increased shareholder value over time. This will require the company to have significant growth, establish market leadership and generate superior financial returns," said AMD Chairman Bruce Claflin.
"We believe a change in leadership at this time will accelerate the company’s ability to accomplish these objectives."
AMD released the firm’s Fusion APU family at the CES show with a number of wins in mobile devices but the firm has yet to produce any device suitable for the explosion in the tablet category.
Meyer headed AMD for a period of three years and has been largely credited with improving the volatile fortunes of the firm however during the same period that Intel unveiled a record $11 billion quarter, Meyer presided over flat revenue of $1.62 billion and mounting losses up to 118 million.
While key announcements such as an ARM version of Windows 8 and Nvidia signaling a desire to compete in the desktop processor space will have done no favors for Meyer, it seems likely the decision was made prior to CES with the announcement helped off until after the launch of the Fusion platform.
