Early Life and Education
Lisa Tzwu-Fang Su was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in November 1969. When she was three years old, her family moved to the United States. Growing up in New York, she developed an early interest in technology, taking apart and fixing electronics. This curiosity led her to study electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. She graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1986.
Rise to Success
Su began her career at Texas Instruments and later joined IBM, where she played a critical role in developing the technology to make copper connections work with semiconductor chips. In 2012, she joined AMD as a senior vice president and general manager, and two years later, she was appointed President and CEO. Under her leadership, AMD underwent a significant transformation, expanding its focus from personal computer products to areas like gaming and artificial intelligence. This strategic shift led to a dramatic increase in the company's revenue and market value. AMD's 2024 revenues were $25.8 billion, a 370% increase since Su became CEO in 2014.
Key Business Strategies
Lisa Su's leadership style is characterized by a focus on innovation, engineering excellence, and building strong customer relationships. She refocused AMD's engineers on creating high-performance processors to compete with Intel. A key strategy was the development of the Zen chip architecture, which launched in 2017. Her emphasis on research and development has positioned AMD as a strong rival in the AI and data center markets. Su emphasizes the importance of high-performance computing and putting computing power into people's hands.
Philanthropy
Lisa Su has demonstrated her commitment to supporting future generations of engineers. In 2022, she awarded the Dr. Lisa Su Innovating Equity Grant to the Global Semiconductor Alliance's (GSA) Women's Leadership Initiative (WLI) to encourage female engineering students to consider a career in the semiconductor industry. During the COVID-19 crisis, AMD donated computing resources to researchers at New York University, MIT, and Rice University.
