Acer appoints former Intel, TSMC executive Jason Chen as CEO

[Half Monk 697]

Acer Inc. on Monday named Jason Chen, former vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), as president and chief executive officer. Chen resigned from TSMC earlier today and will begin duties with Acer on January 1.

 

 

The Taiwan-based company has been in management turmoil in recent times. Early last month, longtime CEO J.T. Wang resigned after the company reported record losses. His replacement, Jim Wong, was set to fill the vacant position on January 1 but he stepped down just two weeks after the announcement. 

 

Founder Stan Shih returned to take over leadership duties while Wang and Wong stayed with the company as advisors.

 

The hiring of Chen is good news for Acer, according to CIMB analyst Wanli Wang, although it isn’t much of a surprise to the market as it had been talked about as of late. The seasoned veteran, who earned his MBA from the University of Missouri in 1988, was appointed vice president of corporate development with TSMC in February 2005.

 

Before that, he served as corporate vice president and co-director of the worldwide sales and market group at Intel. His previous experience may be helpful to Acer’s new product development and cooperation with Intel in the future, the analyst noted.

 

In a statement on the matter, Shih said they consider him to be the ideal executive to lead their transformation with his wealth of new thinking, international perspective and willingness to face the challenge.