AMD CFO Seifert resigns

IDG News Service - Advanced Micro Devices announced Monday that its chief financial officer, Thomas Seifert, has resigned from his post and that a hunt is on for his replacement.

AMD has appointed Devinder Kumar, senior vice president and corporate controller, as interim CFO until a replacement is found. Seifert will stay on at the chip maker until the end of September to help with the transition, AMD said.

Seifert joined AMD in 2008 and has been one of the few remaining executives from the management team that included former CEO Dirk Meyer and former product chief Rick Bergman.

Seifert was made CEO on an interim basis after Meyer's resignation and played a key role in the search for AMD's new CEO, a job other executives including Apple's Tim Cook, Oracle's Mark Hurd and VMware's Pat Gelsinger were said to have shied away from.

AMD ultimately appointed former Lenovo President and Chief Operating Officer Rory Read in August last year.

AMD has since overhauled the management team, appointing Mark Papermaster as chief technology officer and Lisa Su as senior vice president and general manager of the global business units.

Seifert left on his own accord, an AMD spokesman said.

"Seifert's departure is not based on any disagreement over the company's accounting principles or practices, or financial statement disclosures," AMD said in a statement.

AMD has been struggling financially and in July reported that its quarterly profit declined by 40 percent year over year to US$37 million, with revenue dropping 10 percent to $1.41 billion. The company blamed a weak consumer PC market for the lower profits.

Kumar joined AMD in 1984 as a financial analyst. He became corporate controller in 2001.

Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductors for IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh. Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com