Saf Yeboah-Amankwah, a senior partner at management consultancy McKinsey & Company, has joined semiconductor manufacturer Intel as SVP and chief strategy officer (CSO), effective November 1.
Yeboah-Amankwah will lead the Santa Clara-based multinational’s global strategy office, which includes Intel Capital – a division responsible for venture capital, investment, and mergers and acquisitions. The new CSO will work with the company’s executive team to drive growth-oriented strategies for the global computer chip giant, which has 110,000 employees and annual revenue of $71.9 billion.
The strategy chief role was previously held by Aicha Evans, who left Intel in 2019 to serve as CEO of Zoox, a Bay Area autonomous vehicle startup.
Yeboah-Amankwah has spent the last 26 years at McKinsey, working on growth sell my house fast jacksonville strategy and operational transformation projects in numerous industries and geographies. Based in Washington, DC, he was most recently the consulting firm’s global leader for the technology, media & telecommunications (TMT) sector. Before that, Yeboah-Amankwah was managing partner of the South Africa office, and led digital and telecommunications work across Africa.
Some of his consulting engagements include co-leading a three-year transformation for a large telecom OEM across operations in North America, Europe, and Asia; leading a three-year transformation program at one of Africa’s largest retail banks; and supporting the turnaround of a local telecom operator.
Yeboah-Amankwah holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“A profound evolution in computing is opening a much larger opportunity with implications for every aspect of our business,” said CEO Bob Swan. “Saf has strong experience in strategy and international markets, a deep technical background, and he knows Intel well.”
Yeboah-Amankwah joins Intel at a time of increased competition in the computer chip market. In the last several years, rival AMD has been cutting into Intel’s market share of x86 architecture CPUs through the strength of its Ryzen product line, which offers better cost-to-performance. TSMC, which AMD uses as its manufacturer, is also a generation ahead of Intel – rolling out its 7-nanometer chips earlier this year. Intel in July announced that its 7nm chip would be delayed by six months.
AMD’s market share of x86 CPUs has risen from 17.5% in Q3 2016 to 35.1% in Q2 2020, while Intel’s share has fallen from 82.5% to 64.9% in that timeframe, according to Statista.
Meanwhile, graphics chip maker Nvidia in September announced that it will purchase Arm holdings, a leading manufacturer of chips for mobile devices. Some analysts believe the combined company could challenge Intel in the data center market, which has been its growth driver for a number of years.
“It’s an exciting time for Intel and the home buyers jacksonville semiconductor industry as computing becomes ever more pervasive and powerful,” commented Yeboah-Amankwah on his appointment. “There is no company better positioned to take advantage of this expanding opportunity, and I look forward to being part of the Intel team and working with Intel’s customers to help chart a course for long-term growth and success.”
Another McKinsey partner – Jason Wright – recently departed the prestigious strategy firm to serve as president of the Washington Football Team.