Toshiba Memory said Thursday it appointed Stacy Smith, former chief financial officer of Intel, as executive chairman effective Oct. 1.

The former Toshiba chipmaking subsidiary, now under the umbrella of a multinational consortium led by U.S. private equity fund Bain Capital, is looking to strengthen overseas marketing while it prepares to go public in three years.

Smith also joins the board of Toshiba Memory. President Yasuo Naruke remains the sole representative director. The other board members comprise Hoya CEO Hiroshi Suzuki and three people from Bain, including its Japan representative, Yuji Sugimoto. Hoya holds a 9.9% stake in Toshiba Memory.

Toshiba Memory supplies memory to smartphone makers, and its key customer base is expanding to include cloud services providers in China and the U.S. The company seeks to step up marketing efforts geared toward overseas clients by using the network Smith built during 30 years at Intel.

Toshiba Memory trails rivals like Samsung Electronics when it comes to the proportion of sales coming from data centers, a focus of investment for cloud services providers.

Smith joined Intel in 1988, eventually becoming CFO and president of manufacturing, operations and sales before leaving in January. He serves as a board member at Autodesk and finance startup Metromile, positions he will maintain for the time being.

By: DocMemory
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