Kate Burleigh, Managing Director, and some say guiding light, for Intel Australia will leave after 20 years. She will finish on 30 June.
Burleigh joined Intel in 1996 after completing a Bachelor of Arts, Political Science, and Government and working in a variety of retail and not-for-profit sectors. She has been an active member and on the Board of the AIIA (Australian Information Industry Association), a member of the CEO Forum, and actively involved in helping Intel support worthy causes like supporting STEM education and the Girl Rising project - educating girls to help break cycles of poverty in just one generation.
Her last eleven years, five as MD, and six as Marketing Director have seen Intel transform from essentially an x86 server, notebook, and desktop CPU maker to a high growth innovator in software, hardware, security, communications and more.
Intel’s VP Sales & Marketing Group, GM Regional Sales Group for the Asia-Pacific and Japan region, Jerry Tsao, said, “Kate brought a new energy and creativity to the Managing Director role in Australia and New Zealand. Under her leadership, Intel’s impact extended well beyond our traditional customer base and channels. We thank Kate for the passion and dedication she showed Intel and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavours.”
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Burleigh said, “I’m proud to say that I joined Intel when Andy Grove was still CEO and I’m as excited today as I was all those years ago about the transformative innovation that Intel is driving. Although it is incredibly hard to leave such a fantastic company and so many great people, the time seems right for me to make a career change and pursue opportunities outside of Intel.”
Burleigh’s told an audience at Data 61 event last year that her passion with STEM stated that when she was a humanities student in the 80s she only did mathematics because it was compulsory.
Last year Burleigh gave a speech titled “Only the paranoid will Survive” where she said when you think about a business like Intel it is definitely a business that has been through one hell of a transformation over many years. It is an interesting read giving some insight into the world’s most successful chip company.
“We put relentless pressure on the design and engineering teams to not rest on our laurels, to come up with the next best things because if we didn’t someone else would. There’s a huge focus on that cannibalisation of our own product, but at the same time taking tremendous risks around the brand. Disrupt or be dumped,” she wrote.
From the writers perspective, it was always refreshing to see Burleigh at industry events in her earlier role as Public Relations Manager, right up to MD, for her support of Sydney’s Vivid festival, and for her approachability.
She has not revealed future plans. Intel will announce a replacement in due course.