AMD CFO Thomas Seifert Resigns

Thomas Seifert is the latest and last C-level executive of the "old" AMD of the Dirk Meyer and Hector Ruiz era to leave the processor manufacturer. According to a press release, the departure happened unexpected and voluntarily.

Seifert will stay with the company until September 28. Devinder Kumar, senior vice president and corporate controller, has been appointed interim chief financial officer. He joined AMD 28 years ago.

Seifert's departure is significant as all top-level executives at AMD have been exchanged within less than one year, indicating the dramatic transformation of the company that forced some key leaders out of the company and made it difficult for the new leaders to keep others on board.

CEO Read has pulled several executives he has known from his time at IBM into AMD (CTO Mark Papermaster, SVP Lisa Su, SVP Chekib Akrout). Other new top level executives joined from Shell Oil (SVP Darrell Ford), Dell (CMO Colette LaForce), McKinsey (CSO Rajan Naik), and Nokia (SVP David Tang), which highlights the strong focus on customers. For a processor manufacturer, the representation of low level product design is surprisingly limited - only Su and Papermaster had such exposure and some may argue that there is no balance between technology and business operations representation in AMD's top decision making ranks.

However, given the extent of the restructuring of AMD's executive ranks, Read has to make this new organization work.

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