Intel exec shake-up promotes Maloney as Gelsinger moves to EMC

A recent Intel television ad uses the slogan, "Our rock stars aren't like your rock stars," and features Ajay Bhatt, a long-time company engineer who led the project to create USB. But during the company's conferences such as IDF where the execs are expected to really rock the house, it's been Pat Gelsinger -- who has held the title CTO at the senior vice president level -- who typically draws the crowd. Besides CEO Paul Otellini, Gelsinger has been the company's most visible and charismatic leader.

As of today, Gelsinger is no longer with Intel, having officially jumped ship to become President and COO of a company whose ability to "rock" ranks right up there with Lawrence Welk: EMC, the storage systems company whose acquisition of storage rock-star Iomega last year put a damper on that party as well.

"We are grateful for Pat's contribution. He's been a key leader for many years," Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy acknowledged to Betanews this afternoon. "We are truly sorry to see him go but understand that he believes he can contribute to the future of EMC."

Gelsinger was easily the most popular Intel executive among technology enthusiasts -- for many engineers, ever since Andy Grove's retirement, he was the face of the company. Huge technology announcements for the company, such as the gains made by its high-k-plus-metal-gate manufacturing methodology, were best explained to the world by Gelsinger. Journalists who otherwise would have skipped Intel's touring IDF show, instead made the trip by the hundreds just to see the cool, self-deprecating, and freestyle exec introduce products and architectures -- for instance, last year's Nehalem rollout.

Though some business news sources referred to this morning's exec shuffle with the word "sweeping," this isn't at all the type of "sweeping re-org" that the company faced in 2006. In fact, even though Intel's press release this morning used the term "consolidation," Chuck Mulloy told Betanews that this shouldn't be perceived as an exercise in trimming fat from the upper ranks.

"This isn't the case. This is putting the key parts of business under three executive vice presidents to enable Paul Otellini to focus more on strategic issues and building global relationships," stated Mulloy. "The planning behind these changes have been ongoing for quite some time."

On more than one occasion, Gelsinger delivered the Intel IDF keynote address, sometimes with his CEO looking on, and in the summer of 2008 with Otellini actually absent. Also conspicuously absent that day was Sean Maloney, the company's executive vice president; so Gelsinger's "guest host" routine was taken by some as a signal that Gelsinger, not Maloney, could be groomed as Otellini's heir to the throne.

But that was not to be: This morning, Maloney was teamed with Dadi Perlmutter to lead what the company still calls it "newly formed" Intel Architecture Group -- its continual attempt to create a single entity that manages the design team. IAG was actually formed in 2000 for the exact same purpose, but after various re-orgs, it often finds itself "re-formed" and charged anew with the same mission. In the IAG role, Perlmutter will be seen as the architectural leader, while Maloney, the company says, "will be responsible for business and operations."

This means that Perlmutter may have the unofficial "CTO" role from this point forward, while Otellini cedes some of his oversight role for day-to-day operations to Maloney, who will now "devote a higher quotient of his time to corporate strategy and driving the company's growth initiatives." Does this make Maloney "the anointed one?"

"Many people like to speculate on these kinds of changes and put it the context of a race or a game," Intel's Chuck Mulloy told Betanews. "We are simply trying to do our best to run a business. This announcement is not about succession but instead is about putting the right management in the right place to improve our performance."

As for Gelsinger, any speculation over whether he feels slighted by his former bosses may be put to rest by his own words -- specifically, from his own 2006 book, The Juggling Act:

Maybe I'm an idealist, but I'd like to believe that every Christian is a great employee. That's not because Christians are superior to non-Christians. Scripture clearly directs us to "in humility consider others better than [our]selves" (Phil. 2:3).

Instead, since we have -- as Colossians tells us -- an "inheritance from the Lord" we can look past the day-to-day politics, disputes, personal attacks, and any other distractions and see that our ultimate reward is not a paycheck, a promotion, personal recognition, stock options, a more powerful position, or any other form of financial or worldly recognition. Rather, our reward is a powerful yet simple, "Well done, my good and faithful servant," from our heavenly Father as we receive that inheritance of eternal life from him.