Intel Names Omar Ishrak As Its New Board Chairman

He takes over for Andy Bryant, who had been Intel's chairman since 2012.

Intel Corp. on Tuesday announced it has named a new chairman of its board of directors to succeed Andy Bryant, who is stepping down after seven years in the role.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker said that effective immediately, independent director Omar Ishrak (pictured) will take over as chairman of Intel's board.

[Related: Intel Data Center Rebounds As CPU Shortage Drags PC Sales]

Ishrak is the CEO of medical devices maker Medtronic, though he will be retiring from that position in April.

Ishrak has served on Intel's board since March 2017, and assumes the chairman position at a time when Intel is experiencing CPU shortages affecting its PC line. Intel's data center lines are also reportedly seeing shortages.

Bryant had held the chairman position at Intel since May 2012, and previously was a longtime executive at the company in roles that included chief financial officer and chief administrative officer.

In a news release, Intel noted that Bryant had notified the board nearly a year ago that he would not seek re-election as chairman at the company’s 2020 annual stockholders meeting. Bryant is departing now "in order to facilitate an effective transition," though he will remain on the board until the stockholder meeting in May, Intel said.

Bryant said in the release that he retires from the board "with great optimism about Intel's future."

Additionally, Intel announced the election of Alyssa Henry, seller lead at Square Inc., as a new independent director on the board.

In connection with Intel's third-quarter earnings last October, Intel CEO Bob Swan said that while the company has continued to invest in expanding its manufacturing capacity, the chip maker was still experiencing supply constraints, which mostly impacted processors for PCs. Swan said CPU supply was expected to improve in the mid- to high-single digits in 2020 with the company increasing capacity by another 25 percent this year.

Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard Enterprise is expecting a shortage of Intel's second-generation Xeon Scalable Cascade Lake processors to run through the rest of the year, according to a report in The Register.