In the wake of nine consecutive losing quarters, which led semiconductor giant Broadcom to cut 16 percent of its workforce in November 2002, the company Thursday initiated a wide-ranging executive shakeup which includes the ouster of President and CEO Dr. Henry T. Nicholas III.
COO and board member Lanny Ross has taken the reins as CEO while the company conducts a search for a permanent chief executive. However, Nicholas will serve out his current term as co-chairman, though he said he will not seek re-election to the board at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May.
“After more than a decade of helping to build Broadcom from a start-up
enterprise to a billion dollar leader in broadband communications markets, I
am taking much needed time off to attend to serious family matters,” Nicholas said. “I believe this is an ideal time to transfer executive
management responsibilities to a new chief executive with broad industry
management experience and the ability to take Broadcom to new levels of
success. We have weathered the worst economic downturn in the history of our
industry, and have emerged in a strong position to seize a number of great
opportunities. We have a solid foundation of products and customers, and a
team of focused managers and engineers dedicated to developing state of the
art technologies and products and competing aggressively in our global
markets. I feel confident that I am leaving at a time when Broadcom is
strong, healthy and poised for growth.”
Dr. Henry Samueli will continue in his roles as co-chairman,
chief technical officer and vice president of Research & Development.
The company also shook up other executive positions, naming four new vice presidents to manage business units which have replaced its networking, carrier access and home networking units.
All four of the new vice presidents will report to Ross.
Thomas Lagatta will be in charge of the client server networking unit which designs and develops Gigabit and Ethernet products for servers, workstations, and mobile PCs.
Lagatta joins Broadcom after serving as VP for Anadigics and before that for Avnet, TRW, and Hughes Aircraft.
Robert Rango will head up the network infrastructure group. Prior to Broadcom, Rango served in several vice president and general manager positions at Lucent Microelectronics and Agere Systems.
Ford Tamer will be in charge of switching and security, and Daniel Marotta will serve as vice president and general manager of the company’s Broadband Communications Business Unit.
Marotta currently oversees Broadcom’s cable and satellite product lines, including solutions for cable set-top boxes, cable modems, satellite digital broadcast, and digital subscriber lines. He formerly served as chief operating officer for Conexant Systems.
Marotta replaces Tim Lindenfelser, who is on a leave of absence.
internetnews.com Senior Editor Thor Olavsrud contributed to this story.
