Rory Read Appointed as CEO at AMD

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)'s board of directors appointed Rory Read as CEO. Read was a longtime IBM exec who most recently was president and chief operating officer at PC vendor Lenovo Group Ltd. The appointment of Read, 49, caps a seven-month search for a permanent CEO after Dirk Meyer resigned in January under pressure from AMD's board. Read was also appointed to AMD's board of directors, the company said. Read spent 23 years at IBM, where he held a broad range of management positions, AMD said. He moved in 2006 to Lenovo?which bought AMD's PC business and, in 2009, was promoted to president and COO. "As president and COO of Lenovo he helped take the company into dynamic new markets while growing market share and expanding profitability," said Bruce Claflin, chairman of AMD's board of directors. "He is ideally suited to accelerate AMD?s evolution into the world?s leading semiconductor design company."