As Frank Yeary retires from Intel, the company picks an engineer to chair its board — Intel Foundry governance issues to be resolved, and looking back at the Yeary years

Intel’s board of directors is getting a new independent chair effective May 13, after the company’s Annual Stockholders’ Meeting, the company announced earlier this week. Dr. Craig H. Barratt, a semiconductor engineer by training — not to be confused with former CEO Craig R. Barrett — will assume the role, succeeding finance veteran Frank D. Yeary, who has served on the board since 2009, and as chair since 2023.

Intel made the announcement on March 3, clarifying that Yeary will not stand for reelection in May. It's the most consequential governance change at Intel since the board’s forced exit of former CEO Pat Gelsinger in late 2024. It also consolidates authority around Barratt, who will lead the board’s focus on scaling U.S. R&D and manufacturing, and CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who has publicly supported Intel Foundry since taking the role.

Who is Craig H. Barratt?

Barratt, 63, holds bachelor's degrees in pure mathematics, physics, and electrical engineering from the University of Sydney, as well as a master's and doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford.

He joined Atheros Communications in 2002 as vice president of technology, was appointed president and CEO in 2003, and led the company for eight years. Atheros was the dominant supplier of Wi-Fi chipsets during the early 802.11 boom, shipping silicon into PCs, consumer routers, smartphones, and networking gear. Under Barratt, the company went public in 2004 and was acquired by Qualcomm in 2011 for roughly $3.1 billion. He then served as president of Qualcomm Atheros through 2013, overseeing the combined non-cellular connectivity and networking silicon business.

After leaving Qualcomm, Barratt ran Google Access and Energy as senior vice president from 2012 to 2016, overseeing Google Fiber and related internet infrastructure projects. He then took over as CEO of Barefoot Networks, a startup building programmable Ethernet switching ASICs, from 2017 until Intel acquired the company in 2019. Post-acquisition, he became senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Ethernet, silicon photonics, and networking businesses, a role he held through 2020. He joined Intel’s board as an independent director in November 2025.

None of that is related to CPU or process technology, though; Barratt has never run a foundry or managed a node transition. What he has done is build and sell semiconductor businesses, work inside Intel as an executive, and, most recently, sit on the board of a company whose products are deeply embedded in the AI infrastructure supply chain — something Intel is trying to break into with its Gaudi accelerators and Intel Foundry.

One of Intel’s ‘most consequential’ periods

Yeary, by contrast, came from investment banking and financial advisory, having spent more than two decades in those fields before joining Intel's board in 2009. His tenure as chair, beginning in 2023, coincided with the most financially damaging stretch in the company's recent history, with losses exceeding $16.6 billion in Q3 2024 alone, a market capitalization that fell dramatically, and a floundering foundry operation that has not yet approached profitability.

Yeary took consequential actions during that period and is understood to have orchestrated Gelsinger's removal. He then brought in Lip-Bu Tan and shepherded an intentional board refresh that has added four independent directors with technology and operational backgrounds since 2024.

“Frank led the effort to bring me in as the company’s CEO, encouraged disciplined board oversight, and reinforced strong board governance. With his and the board’s support, I have been empowered to take decisive actions to strengthen our financial foundation, advance our process roadmap, and position the company for long-term competitiveness,” said Tan in an official press release announcing Yeary’s retirement.

But some industry analysts have reported that Yeary and Tan were not aligned on keeping Intel Foundry. In a post to X on August 7, Citrini Research analyst Jukan cited insiders who claimed that Yeary drafted a plan to spin off Intel Foundry as an independent entity, bring in minority investment from companies including Nvidia and Amazon, and effectively step back from contract manufacturing as a core business.

"With a stronger balance sheet, meaningful progress across our roadmap — including Intel 18A and 14A — and a clear path forward under Lip-Bu, this is the appropriate time for me to step down as chair and from the board and transition leadership to a new independent chair,” said Yeary.

Tan opposed it, arguing that the foundry is both “essential to Intel’s success and necessary for the U.S. to secure” a domestic alternative to TSMC. None of this has been acknowledged by Intel, however, so it should be read with appropriate caution.

What’s confirmed is that Yeary is leaving, and the new chair has publicly stated that his focus will be on supporting “rigorous execution” in investing and scaling U.S. R&D and manufacturing.

Proving 18A at scale

Tan has staked Intel’s recovery on first proving that 18A can work at scale, and second, convincing external customers to commit to Intel Foundry for production. Neither objective is achievable if the board retains any serious appetite for spinning out or selling the Intel Foundry business, which posted an operating loss of $13.4 billion in 2024.

Intel launched Panther Lake (Core Ultra Series 3) on 18A at CES in January, with consumer systems shipping later that month, making it the first commercial platform built on the node and the most advanced process ever manufactured in the United States, using RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery.

Yields are sufficient to support Panther Lake shipments, but Intel CFO David Zinsner said in October that they are not yet high enough to deliver normal profit margins, with industry-standard yield results not expected until 2027. It’s understood that Intel doesn’t plan to add significant 18A capacity in 2026 beyond current commitments.

In Barratt, Intel will gain a chair who has publicly committed to scaling U.S. manufacturing, who operates inside a semiconductor ecosystem that depends on foundry diversity, and who has worked inside Intel's own infrastructure business. That’ll obviously matter to potential foundry customers doing long-term planning who need confidence that Intel Foundry will still exist and be resourced in five years.

"The company has taken significant steps to strengthen its financial position, advance its technology and product roadmap, and enhance operational discipline," said Barratt. "The board thanks Frank for his leadership and for helping position Intel for this next phase."

Intel's board will also shrink from 12 to 11 members following the May meeting, as Yeary's seat will not be filled. Given that four new directors with technology operating backgrounds have joined the board since 2024, its overall composition is moving in a consistent direction away from purely financial oversight and towards technical expertise.