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Lip-Bu Tan
CEO of Intel (born 1959) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lip-Bu Tan (Chinese: 陳立武; pinyin: Chén Lìwǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Li̍p-Bú; born November 12, 1959) is an American business executive, who was appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) in March 2025.[3] He also serves as the Chairman of Walden International, a venture capital firm,[4] a Founding Managing Partner of Walden Catalyst Ventures and Celesta Capital, and holds numerous board positions. Previously, Tan was the CEO of Cadence Design Systems from 2009 to 2021.[5]
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Early life
Tan was born November 12, 1959 in Muar, Johor, in the previous Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) to an ethnic Chinese family in Malaysia.[6][7] His father, Keng Lian Tan, was the chief editor of the Malaysian Chinese-language daily newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau and his mother, Yeok Choong Chew, was a university warden at Nanyang Technological University. He is the youngest of five siblings.
Tan graduated from Nanyang Technological University Singapore with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1978.[8] After graduation, Tan moved to the United States and earned a master's degree in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981[6] and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of San Francisco in California.[6][9][10]
More recently, he received honorary degrees from the University of San Francisco for Humane Letters in 2022[11][12] and Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh for Science and Technology in 2025.
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Career
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Walden International
Tan was a manager at EDS Nuclear and ECHO Energy and partner at the Walden USA investment fund before founding venture capital (VC) firm Walden International in 1987.[13][10][14] He named the firm after the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau because Tan's goal was to be like Thoreau: "Contrarian, rather than just following the trend."[9]
The company grew from $3 million upon its founding to $5 billion by 2001 by focusing its investments in Asian tech startups. In 2001, Forbes dubbed Tan "the pioneer of Asian VC."[7][15] Tan has focused on global technology investments primarily in semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), and software. He has helped to create more than 300 American companies, approximately 50,000 American jobs, and $400 billion in American market capitalization.[16] He worked with 40 American companies through the initial public offering (IPO) on the U.S. stock exchanges (Nasdaq/NYSE). Additionally, Tan assisted 66 companies with a mergers & acquisitions exit.
Cadence Design Systems
In February 2004, the Cadence Design Systems board of directors elected Tan to the board.[17] Tan became interim co-CEO of Cadence in October 2008. The Cadence board formally named Tan president and CEO effective January 2009.[18] Under Tan's leadership, Cadence revenue doubled and generated approximately 4,000% return for shareholders.[19] Tan recruited and trained his successor and stepped down as CEO and became executive chairman in 2021.[5] He later stepped down from the office of chairman of Cadence in 2023.[20]
Intel
On March 12, 2025, Tan was named CEO of Intel, effective March 18.[21][22] Tan had previously served on Intel's board of directors from 2022 to 2024.[23][24]
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Board memberships
Academic Boards
Tan is currently on the board of UC Berkeley College of Engineering.[25] He also serves on the board of trustees of Carnegie Mellon University School of Engineering[26] of which he is a member of the Dean's Advocacy Council, and established the Tan Endowed Graduate Fellowship for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.[27]
Tan is also a trustee at the Fuller Theological Seminary, where he was a founding member of the Insight Council, and received the Imec 2023 Lifetime of Innovation Award[28] for his contributions to the chip industry and the entrepreneurship in the tech industry.
Company Boards
Currently, Tan is on the boards of Intel[29], Schneider Electric, and Credo Technology Group. Previously, he served on the boards of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Softbank Capital[30], Ambarella, Flextronics International, Inphi Corporation, Mindtree, Semiconductor Manufacturing Interational Corporation, and the United Overseas Bank.[31]
Tan is a member of The Business Council.[32][33] He is also a member of the Committee of 100.[7][31]
Philanthropy
In November 2019, Tan and Cadence Design Systems endowed two computer science professorships for $3 million each at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.[34] In June 2024, Tan pledged a gift of S$3 million[35] to Nanyang Technology University (NTU) to set up a new professorship in artificial intelligence (AI), to attract talent and support the advancement of research and education at NTU's College of Computing and Data Science.
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Recognition
In 2017, the analytics firm Relationship Science named Tan to the Most Connected Executives in the Technology Industry list with a perfect "power score" of 100.[36]
In August 2022, Tan received the Robert N. Noyce Award from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the industry's highest honor.[37]
Tan was honored with the 2025 Phil Kaufman Award for his leadership and impact on the Electronic System Design (ESD) industry.[38]
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Personal life
Tan is an American citizen[39] and lives in Piedmont, California, with his wife Ysa Loo. They have two grown children. A Christian, he adheres to Presbyterianism.[6] Tan has been an elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley since the 1990s.[40]
References
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