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HARDWARE 

HP Promotes Division Executives

HP has promoted Stephen DiFranco, former GM of the Solutions Partner Organization, to the role of SVP & GM for the Americas region of its Personal Systems Group (PSG). DiFranco joined HP from Lenovo, where he served as VP of Consumer and Commercial Channels. Prior to Lenovo, DiFranco held senior marketing positions at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Maxtor. DiFranco will replace Stephen DeWitt, who has been named SVP & GM of the webOS Global Business Unit. Prior to his promotion, DeWitt was leading the Personal Systems Group Americas region. He joined the company in 2008.

HP also announced that Jon Rubinstein, 54, the visionary behind webOS, has been named SVP of Product Innovation in the Personal Systems Group. Rubinstein has previously served at Apple, NeXT Computer, and FirePower Systems.

HP Executive Joins Apple

Apple announced that BJ Watrous, a patent lawyer, has joined the company as the new VP & Chief IP Counsel. Watrous comes to Apple from HP, where he most recently served as VP & DGC of IP & Licensing.

Veteran Promoted to CEO of Canon US Life Sciences

Canon U.S.A. announced the appointment of Toru Nishizawa as President and CEO of Canon U.S. Life Sciences. Nishizawa will also serve as EVP of the Business & Technology Development Group for Canon Virginia. Nishizawa began his career with Canon in 1980 and most recently served as Group Executive of the Office Imaging Products Business. Prior to that, he was President of Canon Giessen in Germany from 2004 until 2009.

SEMICONDUCTORS

Board Member Resigns from Marvell

Marvell Technology Group announced that Kuo Wei Chang, 48, is resigning from its Board of Directors for personal reasons. He is currently a Managing Member of Growstar Associates. He also serves as a Director for Monolithic Power Systems. Chang has earlier served as President of InveStar Capital and CEO of C Squared Management.

VP, Finance Set to Leave Chip Maker

Atmel announced that David McCaman, 53, the VP of Finance, CAO, & Principal Accounting Officer, announced his intention to retire. McCaman joined Atmel in 2003 as the Corporate Controller and was promoted to VP in 2006. Previously, he worked in finance positions at Electronics for Imaging, KLA-Tencor, and several networking startup companies.

Semiconductor Component Maker Appoints CTO

Vishay Intertechnology, a supplier of discrete semiconductor components to tech giants, announced that Johan Vandoorn, 54, will assume the position of CTO. Vandoorn has served as Vishay's EVP of Passive Components since 2006 and will continue to serve in that role after he is promoted. Prior to Vishay, he served as the VP of Global Operations for BCcomponents and held tech roles at Philips Components.

CEO Leaves SMIC; Non-Executive Director Promoted to Chairman & Acting CEO

Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) announced that Zhang Wenyi has been appointed as the Chairman and Executive Director of the company. The Board also announced that Wenyi has been appointed as the acting CEO while the search for a permanent CEO continues. These moves are in response to the resignation of the company’s current CEO David Wang, 64. Wenyi previously served as a non-executive director at the company, a position which is now vacant.

Wireless Communication Component Maker Hires Division VP & GM

TriQuint Semiconductor announced that James Klein has joined the company as VP & GM of its Defense and Aerospace business. Most recently, Klein was with Raytheon in the Space and Airborne Systems division. Prior to Raytheon, he held various positions with Texas Instruments where he focused on MMIC and Transmit/Receive module engineering.

Tessera Selects New Division President

Tessera Technologies, a chip packaging and miniaturization technology provider, has named Richard Chernicoff as President of its Intellectual Property and Microelectronics division. Prior to Tessera, Chernicoff was President at Unity Semiconductor. Before Unity, he served as SVP of BD for SanDisk, as an M&A Partner at Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, and as a corporate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

K&S Appoints New SVP

Kulicke & Soffa, one of the leading suppliers of semiconductor equipment, announced that Lester Wong, 44, will join the company as SVP of General Counsel & Legal Affairs. Wong is currently General Counsel at GigaMedia. He previously served as Senior Legal Counsel at CDC and as an executive with Cowen Latitude Asia, one of Asia's leading investment banks.

Integrated Circuit Maker Recruits Sales & Marketing Professionals

Micrel announced that David Schwartz, a veteran sales professional in the semiconductor industry, is joining as the company's VP of Worldwide Sales. Most recently, Schwartz was the VP of Worldwide Sales for Advanced Analogic Technologies and Oxford Semiconductor. He has also held senior executive positions at Renesas Technology Americas and Mitsubishi Semiconductor Americas.

The company also announced that Brian Hedayati has been named VP of Analog Marketing. Hedayati most recently held the position of Executive Director at Maxim Integrated Products. He has also held senior executive positions at Supertex and Texas Instruments.

Brand New Exec Position Filled at Infinera

Infinera, a networking chip company, has appointed Mike Kelly as VP of Sales for the Cable Market, a newly created position. The creation comes as a result of the company's growing success with top cable operators in the U.S. In the past, Kelly has been involved with cable television and network infrastructure companies such as Antec, C-Cor, and Juniper Networks.

VP, HR Selected at Inphi

Inphi, an analog semiconductor solutions provider, announced the appointment of Leon Bezdikian to the position of VP of HR. He comes from SiBEAM where he most recently served as VP of HR. Prior to SiBEAM, he was the Director of HR at T-RAM and held similar roles at Virage Logic, SanDisk, and Storage Dimensions. Previously, Bezdikian has led a management consulting practice.

Division VP Recruited at MaxLinear

MaxLinear, a fabless semiconductor company, announced that Brian Sprague will be joining the company as the VP & GM of the Broadband and Consumer Products division. Sprague has worked in a variety of engineering and marketing roles at United Technologies, LSI Logic, and Broadcom. During his time at Broadcom, Sprague served as VP of Marketing for the Broadband Communications Group and VP of the Performance Segment in the Mobile Platforms Group. 

Promotions at Chinese Semiconductor Company

Vimicro International, a fabless semiconductor company, announced the promotions of Yundong Zhang, Jun Zhu, and Shuhua Yang.

Zhang, the former SVP, has been appointed as the new CTO. He joined the Company in 2001.

Zhu has been named SVP. He previously served as VP of Engineering and played a crucial role in developing the PC camera business. Since he joined the company in 2000, he has held the titles of Engineering Director, Head of IC Engineering, and VP of Engineering.

Yang has been promoted from Financial Controller to acting CFO. She has extensive experience with companies such as Aspen Technology, Harris Corporation, and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Date range: June 17th - July 25th

Last modified on Tuesday, 13 September 2011 13:00
Dora Vell

Dora Vell

Dora Vell is the Managing Partner of Vell Executive Search, a boutique executive search firm in Boston focused on recruiting technology executives and board members. Vell has successfully completed numerous board member and C-level executive searches, including CEOs, COOs, CIOs, and Vice Presidents - at both public and private companies.

Prior to founding the firm in 2005, Vell was a Partner at Heidrick & Struggles' Technology practice for seven years.  Before her career in executive search, she worked at IBM for 11 years, managing software engineering organizations of 100 people and software sales organizations with revenues of $150 million. She has also served as an executive assistant to the CEO of IBM Canada for one year.

Vell holds seven worldwide software patents. She has published several Business of Leadership reports on governance and leadership and has been quoted in numerous articles including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, Fortune, Agenda Week, MSNBC, Mass High Tech, the OPUS for the World Economic Forum, Boston Business Journal, The Globe & Mail, CIO Magazine, and IEEE. She also has been a featured speaker on leadership at numerous conferences and at Columbia University's MBA program.

Vell is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), the Boston CEO Roundtable. She has served on the boards of Framingham State, Entrepreneur's Organization, Goodwill, Mary Centre for developmentally handicapped adults, garage.ca, and RBC Capital Partners.

She has received an MBA from the University of Toronto, a Master in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, and a Bachelor in Computer Science from Carleton. She has also completed the MIT Entrepreneurial Master’s program.

Website: www.vell.com/ E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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