Intel’s chief executive of products departs among other leadership changes

Semiconductor giant Intel continues to shake up its senior leadership since Lip-Bu Tan took the helm as CEO in March.

Intel announced Monday that Michelle Johnston Holthaus will depart the company after more than three decades. Johnston Holthhaus was most recently chief executive officer of Intel products and will remain a strategic adviser.

The company also announced the creation of a central engineering group that will build a new custom silicon business for outside customers, according to Intel. This group will be helmed by Srinivasan “Srini” Iyengar who joined Intel from Cadence Design Systems in July.

Intel also said that Kevok Kechichian, formerly of ARM, will join the company as head of its data center group. Jim Johnson has been appointed senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s client computing group. Naga Chandrasekaran, the chief technology and operations officer of Intel Foundry, the company’s business unit that builds custom chips for outside customers, is also taking on an expanded role.

“With Srini leading Central Engineering, we’re aligning innovation and execution more tightly in service to customers,” Tan said in a company press release. “We are laser-focused on delivering world-class products and empowering our engineering teams to move faster and execute with excellence. Kevork, Jim, and Srini are exceptional leaders whose deep technical acumen and industry relationships will be instrumental as we continue building a new Intel.”

This news comes just a few weeks after the U.S. government announced a plan to convert existing government grants into a 10% stake in Intel. The deal was structured to penalize Intel if the company dropped below 50% ownership of its foundry unit.

These weren’t the only leadership changes at Intel this year.

Tan taking over as CEO in March is a notable one. In July the company announced that it hired four new people for sales and engineering roles including Greg Ernst to serve as Intel’s chief revenue officer.

Intel declined to comment.