Lip-Bu Tan (Chinese: 陳立武; pinyin: Chén Lìwǔ; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Tân Li̍p-Bú; born November 12, 1959) is an American business executive who has been chief executive officer (CEO) of Intel since 2025. He is also chairman of Walden International, a venture capital firm; a founding managing partner of Walden Catalyst Ventures and Celesta Capital; and holds numerous board positions. Tan was CEO of Cadence Design Systems from 2009 to 2021.
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Early life and education
Tan was born November 12, 1959, in Muar, Johor, Federation of Malaya (modern-day Malaysia), to an ethnic Malayan Chinese family. His father, Keng Lian Tan, was the chief editor of the Malaysian Chinese-language daily newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau, and his mother, Yeok Choong Chew, was a university warden at Nanyang University. He is the youngest of five siblings.
Tan received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Nanyang University in 1978, a Master of Science degree in nuclear engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980, and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of San Francisco in 1983.
He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of San Francisco in 2022 and an honorary Doctor of Science and Technology degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 2025.
Career
Walden International
Tan was a manager at EDS Nuclear and ECHO Energy and partner at the Walden USA investment fund before founding venture capital (VC) firm Walden International in 1987. He named the firm after the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau because Tan's goal was to be like Thoreau: "Contrarian, rather than just following the trend."
The company grew from $3 million upon its founding to $5 billion by 2001 by focusing its investments in Asian tech startups. In 2001, Forbes dubbed Tan "the pioneer of Asian VC." Tan has focused on global technology investments primarily in semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), and software. He has helped to create more than 300 American companies, approximately 50,000 American jobs, and $400 billion in American market capitalization. He worked with 40 American companies through the initial public offering (IPO) on the U.S. stock exchanges (Nasdaq/NYSE). Additionally, Tan assisted 66 companies with a mergers & acquisitions exit.
Cadence Design Systems
In February 2004, the Cadence Design Systems board of directors elected Tan to the board. Tan became interim co-CEO of Cadence in October 2008. The Cadence board formally named Tan president and CEO effective January 2009. Under Tan's leadership, Cadence revenue doubled and generated approximately 4,000% return for shareholders. Tan recruited and trained his successor and stepped down as CEO and became executive chairman in 2021. He later stepped down from the office of chairman of Cadence in 2023.
Intel
In March 2025, Tan was named CEO of Intel, effective from March 18, 2025. Tan had been on Intel's board of directors from 2022 to 2024.
Board memberships
Academic boards
Tan is currently on the board of UC Berkeley College of Engineering. He also is on the board of trustees of Carnegie Mellon University School of Engineering of which he is a member of the Dean's Advocacy Council, and established the Tan Endowed Graduate Fellowship for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Tan is also a trustee at the Fuller Theological Seminary, where he was a founding member of the Insight Council, and received the Imec 2023 Lifetime of Innovation Award for his contributions to the chip industry and the entrepreneurship in the tech industry.
Company boards
Tan is on the boards of Intel, Schneider Electric, and Credo Technology Group. He was on the boards of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Softbank Capital, Ambarella, Flextronics International, Inphi Corporation, Mindtree, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, and the United Overseas Bank.
Tan is a member of The Business Council. He is also a member of the Committee of 100.
Philanthropy
In November 2019, Tan and Cadence Design Systems endowed two computer science professorships for $3 million each at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. In June 2024, Tan donated S$3 million to Nanyang Technological University (NTU) to set up a new professorship in artificial intelligence (AI), to attract talent and support the advancement of research and education at NTU's College of Computing and Data Science.
Recognition
Tan was named to "The 100 Most Influential People of 2026" by Time magazine.
He was also honored with the 2025 Phil Kaufman Award for his leadership and impact on the Electronic System Design (ESD) industry.
In August 2022, Tan received the Robert N. Noyce Award from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the industry's highest honor.
In 2017, the analytics firm Relationship Science named Tan to the Most Connected Executives in the Technology Industry list with a perfect "power score" of 100.
Personal life
Tan is an American citizen and lives in Piedmont, California, with his wife Ysa Loo. They have two grown children. A Christian, he adheres to Presbyterianism. Tan has been an elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley since the 1990s.