Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday promoted Y.J. Mii (米玉傑) and Y.P. Chyn (秦永沛) as co-chief operating officers (COO) of the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, signaling the formation of a succession team.
The latest executive reshuffle comes after TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) in December last year announced that he is to retire this year. CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) has been recommended as his successor while continuing to serve in his current position.
Mii and Chyn, as well as the company’s human resources, finance, legal and corporate planning units, are to report directly to Wei, a company statement released after the board of directors approved the appointment during a special board meeting yesterday said.
Photo: Grace Hung, Taipei Times
All other organizations are to report to the co-COOs. The new personnel adjustments and organizational structure take effect today, it said.
TSMC did not disclose details about the new COOs’ job responsibilities.
The company appointed Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president of Europe and Asia sales and corporate research, as Chyn’s deputy, while Kevin Zhang (張曉強), senior vice president of TSMC’s business development, is to be Mii’s deputy.
Chyn is currently responsible for the operation and management of all fabs in Taiwan and overseas. He also co-leads TSMC’s Overseas Operations Office, which is responsible for supporting the company’s global expansion and accelerating the organizational effectiveness of overseas operations, information on the company’s Web site says.
Mii is in charge of the company’s research and development (R&D). He joined TSMC in 1994 as a manager at Fab 3 and then joined the R&D unit in 2001. In 2011, Mii was appointed vice president of R&D and in November 2016, he was promoted to senior vice president.
This is not the first time TSMC has adopted a co-COO management model. In 2012, the chipmaker’s board appointed three executives — Chiang Shang-yi (蔣尚義), Liu and Wei — to share the responsibilities of COO.
The three took turns taking charge of the company’s three major divisions: R&D, operations or manufacturing and business development.
In 2018, Liu was tapped as company chairman after founding chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) retired from his post. Wei became company CEO.
“C.C. has been on the job of CEO for six years. In fact, he is the most well-prepared CEO,” Chang said during his speech at a ceremony in which Wei was awarded an honorary doctorate by National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu yesterday.
Wei is a CEO with comprehensive experiences in the company’s three key divisions, in addition to sales and marketing, Chang said.
He was appointed head of the chipmaker’s first business development division in charge of sales and marketing in 2019, Chang said.
Prior to that, Wei was responsible for managing the company’s 6-inch and 8-inch fabs. He also worked at the R&D divisions of TSMC and Texas Instruments, Chang said.
In his speech, Wei said he has learned a lot from Chang, including how to be a trusted partner of customers.
The first step in building trust with customers is not to compete with them, Wei said, adding that this is the “essence of running a foundry model.”
Moreover, it is something that TSMC’s major rivals, one from South Korea and the other from California, can never catch up with, he said.
Merida Industry Co (美利達) has seen signs of recovery in the US and European markets this year, as customers are gradually depleting their inventories, the bicycle maker told shareholders yesterday. Given robust growth in new orders at its Taiwanese factory, coupled with its subsidiaries’ improving performance, Merida said it remains confident about the bicycle market’s prospects and expects steady growth in its core business this year. CAUTION ON CHINA However, the company must handle the Chinese market with great caution, as sales of road bikes there have declined significantly, affecting its revenue and profitability, Merida said in a statement, adding that it would
RISING: Strong exports, and life insurance companies’ efforts to manage currency risks indicates the NT dollar would eventually pass the 29 level, an expert said The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rallied to its strongest in three years amid inflows to the nation’s stock market and broad-based weakness in the US dollar. Exporter sales of the US currency and a repatriation of funds from local asset managers also played a role, said two traders, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to speak publicly. State-owned banks were seen buying the greenback yesterday, but only at a moderate scale, the traders said. The local currency gained 0.77 percent, outperforming almost all of its Asian peers, to close at NT$29.165 per US dollar in Taipei trading yesterday. The
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
RECORD LOW: Global firms’ increased inventories, tariff disputes not yet impacting Taiwan and new graduates not yet entering the market contributed to the decrease Taiwan’s unemployment rate last month dropped to 3.3 percent, the lowest for the month in 25 years, as strong exports and resilient domestic demand boosted hiring across various sectors, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. After seasonal adjustments, the jobless rate eased to 3.34 percent, the best performance in 24 years, suggesting a stable labor market, although a mild increase is expected with the graduation season from this month through August, the statistics agency said. “Potential shocks from tariff disputes between the US and China have yet to affect Taiwan’s job market,” Census Department Deputy Director Tan Wen-ling
RSS