Times Magazine has named Lisa Su, AMD’s CEO as its CEO of the Year for 2024 naming her as a leader who has successfully engineered a turnaround for the world’s leading semiconductor giant. According to the magazine, under Lisa Su’s leadership, AMD became one of the greatest turnarounds in modern business history and became a powerful force in the industry. The company is now priced around $130 per share, far higher than the $3 when Su took the reins of AMD nearly a decade ago, Su’s influence on the company cannot be ignored.
Su’s tenure at AMD has been defined by strategic decisions that have positioned the company to compete with longstanding rival Intel and to address new challenges posed by Nvidia’s dominance in the AI chip market. In its discussion of Su, Time emphasized her tenacious work habit and the fact that she met over weekends and was fabled for her attention to minute detail, often reading page after page of long documents late into the night personally overseeing the testing of prototype chips. These habits won her a reputation for knowing everything from high-level strategic vision to technical execution on the inside.
Before leading AMD, Su had a distinguished career in the semiconductor industry where she served as chief technology officer at Freescale Semiconductor and as an engineer at IBM. She has received many accolades, including being named to Fortune’s list of top businesspeople each year since 2020. She also served as a member of President Joe Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and serves on the boards of the Semiconductor Industry Association.
The recognition as CEO of the Year by Su at this point is when AMD is still going great in the global semiconductor market and continues to pose a challenge to bigger players in critical technologies. Being based in Austin, Texas, the success story of AMD testifies to Su’s visionary leadership and dedication to both the company and the industry. She’s far more than an AMD icon as she continues to shape the future of computing and AI.
