Let’s meet our July feature of Get to Know the CEO! This month we had the privilege to sit down with Ken Lau is the CEO of Neuchips.
With extensive leadership experience in multiple business sectors including data center, PC client, and semiconductor, Ken brings a wealth of knowledge to his new role. Previously, he served as the general manager of Intel Taiwan with over 26 years of ICT industry experience. Ken is a highly accomplished senior leader with strong industry experience from both the United States and Asia. During his tenure at Intel, he played a vital role in developing the data center ecosystem across the US and Asia, driving significant design wins for the company.
Additionally, he led the Chromebook engineering product line, forging partnerships with OEMs and key cloud service provider, and establishing x-86 Chromebook as the leading cloud client system in the market today.
Let’s get to know more about Ken:
Q: What advice would you give to early-career engineers/people wanting to get into your vertical market/people wanting to start a company in the current climate/etc.?
A: Take risk at early stage in your life in your career. Be very prescriptive with the problem you want to solve. To lead in this industry, it is not that we need to solve all the problems but to solve the exact problem that is WORTH solving. And once you identify the worthy problem to solve, your solution needs to be DISRUPTIVE and BOLD.
Q: What was your first job in the industry?
A: My first job was a research intern at a materials engineering company. I researched on Silicon Carbide 30 some years ago for the space shuttle program. Today, they are now using SiC for MOSFET and other electronic components. That company went through a lot (merger-acquisition); the first time I experienced a “lay-off” in the industry. I learned to be keep up with the learning and push hard in getting result.
Q: Who was (or is) your mentor? And, what is the best piece of advice you received from him/her?
A: The best mentor was my previous Taiwan Manager (S. Huang); also the previous Intel Taiwan Site manager. He was instrumental in helping me to become a much stronger leader in the industry. At my younger self, I often think of myself as a top performer (a bit of arrogance of myself) because I know I can get things done and did them quickly. And during the best days at Intel, there were many people may different personalities and attitudes. And there were certain individuals whom my team and I found difficult to work with. They may have been too slow as compared to myself or they may be too political to work with; and always have a hidden agenda. At that time, I complained a little more than I should have. This mentor (also my manager at the time) advised me that there will always be people whom one may not be able to work effectively with them. However, I still need to find a way to work with them.
As a leader we need to seek out the best in people and find ways to excel everyone in the company/industry; not just ourselves. S. Huang said: “They don’t need to be your friend but you have to lead them to find a way to work with you effectively.” When one become a senior leader, it is never about himself/herself or your own team. It is about how we lead the people and let them follow your vision and achieve the goal together. Not alone! This is how I am leading Neuchips now; we must lead to seek WIN-WIN for everyone; inside and outside the company and create an environment where we can learn from each other and winning together. For us to win in the AI area, we need the ecosystem to work with us to win; that means we need the application level, system integration, hardware, software driver, and supply chain to work together to materialize our common vison
Q: What book do you read over and over again? OR What book are you currently reading?
A: Straight from the Gut by Jack Welch. A leadership and management book. One key learning is: how we grow our team? How we ought to manage up time and down time. Good read for all upcoming leaders.
Q: What has been the highlight of your career to date?
A: During my days at Intel, we were working to promote much better adoption of Ultrabook™ in the industry. While my previous employer did have a good low power processor, the entire supply chain was not ready to produce this type of thin and light notebook at massive scale. Additionally, I had a lot of resistance within the company and in Taiwan to move this forward. At the inception of our low power processor, we only have about 4 design wins (4 OEM SKUs spec’d in). This was not nearly enough to drive the volume. In short, I came with an idea drive the entire ecosystem instead from key component suppliers to system/chassis manufacturers. This was to show the entire ecosystem our Ultrabook™ vision and show them the end state of what it would look like we are can get the entire ecosystem to move forward on this. With our focused effort in driving the Ultrabook™ Ecosystem and addressed every concern with each key supply chain, we achieved 140 design wins within 4 months. This is now the new normal—your laptop being thin and light.
That said, I have a track record in seeking win-win with the ecosystem. And I am going to do this again with Neuchips where we will win together with the entire AI ecosystem and enriching everyone’s life with a responsible AI solution.
Q: What hobbies do you participate in outside of work, or what do you do with your free time?
A: Play tennis: It relieves my stress and keep my mind and body focused on the ball.
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