Cisco announced today that it had appointed AMD CEO Lisa Su to its Board of Directors. Su, like many other executives, has served on boards at other companies before: The move comes after Su stepped down from the Board at Analog Devices in December.
We reached out to AMD for more information, and the company indicates that Su will stay in her position as AMD CEO and on AMD's own Board of Directors. That means we shouldn't see any major changes to the company's leadership or objectives.
The announcement comes on the eve of AMD's financial earnings that will be released tomorrow, but Cisco's press release is light on details and doesn't include any information about Su's compensation package. Per Cisco:
"AMD President and CEO Dr. Lisa Su Appointed to Cisco Board of Directors.
Cisco today announced the appointment of Dr. Lisa T. Su, AMD president and CEO, to its board of directors effective today."
The press release includes several details of Su's previous work and notes that she continues to serve on the AMD board as well, a position she has held since 2014.
Cisco, a networking hardware, software, and telecommunications giant, currently has a market cap of $201.38 billion. For comparison, AMD currently has a market cap of $54.68 billion.
Notably, Cisco is a key competitor for Mellanox, which is currently in the midst of a $6.9 billion acquisition by Nvidia. That acquisition is still working its way through regulatory channels and awaits approval from China's MOFCOM organization, which might be a dicey proposition given the ongoing trade war. In either case, Su and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang might find themselves on opposite sides of the ball once again, but this time in the networking market.
Cisco is deeply involved in the networking field, but also has a line of Unified Computing System (UCS) servers that predominantly feature Intel's silicon, although a few models already come equipped with AMD's EPYC processors. However, Su's new position on the board shouldn't imply any increased cooperation between the two companies beyond the existing projects.
Lisa Su also serves on the board of directors for the Global Semiconductor Alliance (chairperson) and the Semiconductor Industry Association.
