The latest episode of The Leaders’ Room features Ruth Cotter, senior vice-president and chief administrative officer at US chips giant AMD. This series is created in partnership with IDA Ireland.
In season three of The Leaders’ Room podcast, we are once again getting to know the leaders of some of the most influential multinationals in tech, life sciences and innovation, as well as insights into their leadership styles and industry trends they see coming down the line.
In this episode, we speak to Silicon Valley-based Ruth Cotter, senior vice-president and chief administrative officer at US chips giant AMD, which has seen a sevenfold increase in European revenue in just the past ten years, about managing change and transformation in the very hot global semiconductor sector.
US chips giant AMD has been in existence for 56 years and has expanded its presence globally to more than 40 countries, with a team of almost 30,000. It has seen some major acquisitions, very rapid growth and a steep rise in revenues in recent years, and Cork native Ruth Cotter has been at the heart of much of that. In August, AMD reported better than expected Q2 revenue at a record $7.7bn, and that despite US export restrictions on its MI308 data centre GPU AI chips to China.
As well as organic growth, Cotter explains that company acquisitions has been one another route to growth, “either for access to new markets or to strengthen and support our R&D efforts”.
“Because research and development really is the lifeblood of our capability to really be such a technology innovator globally,” she says, and she explains that the Irish operation is key to that capability, as its largest R&D centre outside the US.
“Originally AMD was present in Ireland very much from a sales perspective, but in 2022 we acquired a company called Xilinx, who had a very strong footing in Dublin and Cork,” she says.
“In Ireland, we have a very important major gateway to Europe, and the largest European R&D centre for the company based in Dublin, supported by Cork as well as Belfast, where we are also present.
“It’s not only the location of the country, which is a no-brainer as you think about access to the US on one side and Europe on the other, but also the highly skilled workforce is incredibly attractive to us, as we think about where Ireland sits in terms of placement globally with the level of third-level education around the world. So, we’re very proud that we’ve grown within Ireland, as well as our European presence.”
We’re grateful to all our interviewees for taking the time to come into the studio and share their insights and their intelligence for season three of the podcast. And big thanks as ever to our partners IDA Ireland who have made this series possible.
The Leaders’ Room podcast is released fortnightly and can be found by searching for ‘The Leaders’ Room’ wherever you get your podcasts. For those who prefer their audio with visuals, filmed versions of the podcast interviews are all available here on SiliconRepublic.com.
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