Barron's thinks the next CEO will come from the outside (I've posted the link below). - they have an interesting piece this morning, they are lukeworm at best as it relates to the internal talent. As Cowen's Matthew Ramsay wrote this morning, finding someone from inside the company is difficult given so many executives have left Intel in recent years.
"We fail to see a clear internal long-term successor given recent changes to senior management,” wrote Ramsay. He lists the many major execs gone, including Diane Bryant, Stacy Smith, Kirk Skaugen, and Renee James.
There are no doubt many talented executives—younger and, in some cases, with less experience—at the company.
They include Aicha Evans, Intel's chief strategy officer, who has been with the company for 12 years. Someone with more long-term experience is Navin Shenoy, the head of the company's data center chip unit, who has been with the company 23 years.
After many executive departures such as former CFO Stacy Smith and server computing exec Diane Bryant, Intel's bench is depleted, but it is not bereft of talent, including younger executives such as Chief Strategy Officer Aicha Evans.
Another fan of Intel who is nevertheless contemplating change is Pierre Ferragu, of the boutique firm New Street Research. He opines that Krzanich’s departure has “no impact to the company or our thesis,” adding, "but the management shake-up which follows it is interesting, and a positive."
Ferragu notes Swan has “a solid track record,” and Ferragu’s chats with investors suggest he is a “strong lever” who may be able to “make things happen” with respect to the company’s "cost rationalization potential and portfolio rationalization potential at Intel."
The transformation under Krzanich, writes Ferragu, has been a movement toward "diversification and expanding Intel’s addressable market."
That’s a "strategy we would directionally support but that we think now needs serious tuning.
"There are activities Intel should probably consider abandoning (baseband), and the overall portfolio of initiatives likely requires some streamlining.
"It will be much easier to engage on these fronts with a new outsider CEO."
Ferragu also opens the door to an activist coming in: "To us Intel remains before anything else an activist play."