When Dr. Lisa Su became chief executive of AMD in 2014, the semiconductor company was struggling and its stock traded near a dollar. Today AMD stands among the leaders in high-performance and AI computing, and Su’s tenure is widely cited as one of the most complete corporate turnarounds in the history of the technology industry.
An engineer first
Su was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1969 and immigrated to New York City with her family at the age of three. She attended the Bronx High School of Science and went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering. Her 1994 doctoral work focused on silicon-on-insulator technology, then an obscure method for building faster, more efficient transistors. That deep technical grounding has set her apart among technology chief executives throughout her career.
The road to AMD
Su began her career at Texas Instruments, then spent more than a decade at IBM working on advanced semiconductor research, followed by a senior role at Freescale Semiconductor. She joined AMD in 2012 and became president and CEO in October 2014, adding the role of chair in 2022.
Rebuilding a chipmaker from the silicon up
Su’s turnaround strategy centered on a bet on high-performance computing and a new processor design called the Zen architecture. That foundation powered AMD’s Ryzen chips for personal computers and EPYC chips for data centers, winning back market share the company had lost for years. More recently, AMD has become a serious competitor in the market for AI accelerators, the specialized chips that train and run artificial intelligence systems.
Her work has earned wide recognition, including being named TIME’s CEO of the Year in 2024 and receiving the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal. In 2026, she returned to her alma mater to deliver the MIT commencement address. In a notable coincidence, Su is a distant relative of Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of rival chipmaker NVIDIA, making the two of them arguably the most influential family in modern computing.
Su leads AMD during the same AI transformation reshaping peers like Apple under Tim Cook. More profiles are in our CEO section.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Lisa Su?
Dr. Lisa Su is the chair and chief executive officer of AMD, a leading semiconductor company. An electrical engineer trained at MIT, she is credited with leading one of the great turnarounds in technology.
Is Lisa Su related to Jensen Huang?
Yes. Su and NVIDIA co-founder Jensen Huang are documented distant relatives, a striking fact given that both lead major, competing semiconductor companies.
When did Lisa Su become AMD’s CEO?
She became president and CEO of AMD in October 2014 and added the role of chair in 2022.
