Lip-Bu Tan

Lip-Bu Tan (; born November 12, 1959) is a Malayan-born American business executive and entrepreneur. , he is the Chief Executive Officer of Intel Corporation. He also serves as chairman of Walden International, a venture capital firm. He was the longtime CEO of Cadence Design Systems from 2009 to 2021.

Early life and education

Tan was born in 1959 in Muar, Johor, in the previous Federation of Malaya (now Malaysia) to an ethnic Malaysian Chinese family. His father was the chief editor of Malaysian Chinese-language daily newspaper ''Nanyang Siang Pau'' and his mother was a teacher. Tan was educated in neighbouring Singapore; he graduated from Nanyang University (merged with the National University of Singapore in 1980) with a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in physics. Tan then moved to the United States and completed a Master of Science in nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Tan began his doctoral studies in nuclear engineering at MIT. However, after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the subsequent sharp reduction in opportunities in the nuclear industry, Tan left MIT and moved to the University of San Francisco in California, where he graduated with a Master of Business Administration.

Career

Tan was a manager at EDS Nuclear and ECHO Energy and partner at the Walden USA investment fund before founding venture capital firm Walden International in 1987. 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." For growing the company from $20 million upon its founding to $2 billion by 2001 by focusing its investments in Asian tech startups, ''Forbes'' dubbed Tan "the pioneer of Asian VC" in 2001. In the years since, Walden has deepened its investment focus on China: from 2017-2020, the company made at least 25 investments in Chinese chip companies, "accounting for more than 40% of the Chinese semiconductor deals involving U.S. venture investors during that period" while Tan, through Walden, "has invested in hundreds of Chinese tech firms, including at least eight with links to the People's Liberation Army." In 2023, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter to Tan in which the committee raised its concerns about Walden’s investments in Chinese tech companies, including those "that the Commerce Department has blacklisted for involvement in human-rights abuses or Chinese military uses." A report from the same committee "found that Walden’s internal documents cited the Chinese government’s prioritization of semiconductors as a reason to invest in the sector."

On February 10, 2004, the Cadence Design Systems board of directors elected Tan to the board. Tan became interim co-CEO of Cadence Design Systems in October 2008, following the resignation of Michael Fister in October 2008. The Cadence board formally named Tan president and CEO effective January 8, 2009. Under Tan's leadership, Cadence grew its net worth to $1.3 billion by 2012, including $440 million in that year alone. Cadence also expanded its Shanghai office in 2012. In 2013, Cadence purchased private chip design company Tensilica for $380 million. On November 16, 2017, Tan dropped the title of president while remaining CEO of Cadence. He stepped down as CEO and became executive chairman in 2021. He stepped down from the office of executive chairman of Cadence in 2023.

In 2017, the analytics firm Relationship Science named him most connected executives in the technology industry garnering a perfect "power score" of 100.

On March 12, 2025, Tan was named CEO of Intel, effective March 18.

Boards and memberships

From 2006 to 2011, Tan was a trustee of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Tan also served on the Regent College Board of Governors from 2006 to 2012, and on the Board of Trustees of New College Berkeley until 2013. Additionally, Tan currently directs the boards of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Schneider Electric, and Softbank and has served on the boards of Ambarella, Flextronics International, Inphi Corporation, Mindtree, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, UC Berkeley College of Engineering, and United Overseas Bank. He is also a member of the Committee of 100. Tan served as a member of the board of Intel Corporation from 2022 until 2024 when he stepped down from the board. On January 28, 2025
Celestial AI
announced the appointment of Lip-Bu Tan to the Board of Directors.

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. In June 2024, Tan has pledged a gift of S$3 million to Nanyang Technology University, Singapore to set up a new professorship in artificial intelligence (AI), to attract talents and support the advancement of research and education at NTU’s College of Computing and Data Science.

In November 2024, Tan and his associates at Walden International committed an investment of S$5 million to kickstart the Nanyang Frontier Fund, a new VC fund launched by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Walden International, to support deep tech spin-offs from the University.

Personal life

Tan is an American citizen and lives in Piedmont, California, with his wife Ysa Loo. They have two grown children. A Christian, he adheres to Presbyterianism. Tan has also been an elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley since the 1990s.

Awards

* August 2022: Received the Robert N. Noyce Award from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the industry’s highest honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tan, Lip-Bu
Living people
1959 births
21st-century American businesspeople
American chairpersons of corporations
American chief executives of materials companies
American computer businesspeople
American financial company founders
American venture capitalists
American technology chief executives
American people of Chinese descent
American people of Malaysian descent
Malaysian
Businesspeople in electronics
Malaysian emigrants to the United States
Malaysian people of Chinese descent
North American people of Malaysian descent
People from Muar
People from Piedmont, California
American Presbyterians
Nanyang University alumni
MIT School of Engineering alumni
University of San Francisco alumni
20th-century American businesspeople
People from Singapore