Rory Read replaced as CEO of AMD by Dr Lucy Su

Rory Read has been replaced as CEO of AMD after just one year, with COO Dr Lisa Su taking over the top spot.

AMD said the CEO change was effective immediately, though Read will stay on in an advisory role until the end of the year.

The chipmaker suggested the plans had been some time in the making, and that the decision to hand the reins to Dr Su was a “joint effort between Rory and the board”.

Read took over as CEO in 2011; he’d previously worked at Lenovo. In the intervening three years, AMD has continued to struggle, with rumours in 2012 that the firm was set to be sold off.

First and foremost we are here to build great products

Since then, AMD has had some successes – including scoring wins in the console market, with its chips used by Microsoft’s Xbox One and the Sony PlayStation 4 – and while it’s continued to struggle in the more traditional computing market that makes up the base of its business, the company has managed to post profits.

Dr Su signaled some of her intentions for AMD, saying diversifying the business was “critical” and that the company would need to be “simplified”.

“First and foremost we are here to build great products,” she added. “These are enabled through our investments in differentiated IP coupled with our design, integration, and system capabilities.”

The choice of Dr Su was welcomed by analysts. “AMD needs growth, and they need it quickly or investors will start to get anxious,” said Patrick Moorhead, a former AMD executive who now heads the firm Moore Insights & Strategy, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Lisa Su is smart, is respected inside and outside the company and I think projects a look of what people expect as an AMD CEO.”