Lisa Su

Some Lesser Known Facts About Lisa Su

• Lisa Su was born in a Taiwanese Hokkien-speaking family.

• Lisa Su moved to the US with her parents when she was just three years old. Her family migrated so that her father could attend graduate school.

• She grew up in New York City and Lisa discovered her love for STEP subjects at an early age and she could write rudimentary programs from a very young age.

• Lisa and her brother were encouraged to study math and science in their childhood.

• When Lisa was just 7 years old, her father began quizzing her on multiplication tables. On the other hand, her mother who was an accountant was the one who introduced Lisa Su to business concepts.

• She always wanted to become an engineer since childhood and when she was 10 years old, Lisa began taking apart and then fixing her brother’s remote control cars. She was quoted saying in an interview that
  

  I just had a great curiosity about how things worked.”

• The very first computer that she owned was an Apple II which she got when she was studying in junior school.

• While she was studying at the Bronx High School of Science, Lisa Su had a project in which she simulated a hurricane inside a box with complete boiling water and windows through which to watch the maelstrom.

• Initially, Lisa was confused about pursuing her major in either electrical engineering or computer science and then she finally decided to study electrical engineering.

• During her freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lisa used to work as an undergraduate research assistant in which she was responsible for manufacturing test silicon wafers for graduate students through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.

• The project of manufacturing test silicon wafers along with other summer jobs at the American multinational semiconductor company named ‘Analog Devices Inc.’ (ADI) sparked her interest in semiconductors.

• Lis Su got so interested in semiconductors that she used to spend the majority of her time in labs designing and adjusting products.

• According to the ‘MIT Technology Review’ (the monthly magazine of MIT), Lisa Su was one of the first researchers to look into silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology which was then an unproven technique for increasing transistors’ efficiency by building them atop layers of an insulating material. ^[2]MIT Technology Review

• In 1994, Lisa became a member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments which is an American multinational semiconductor company. She started working in the company’s Semiconductor Process and Device Center (SPDC) and worked there till 1995.

• In 1995, she started working as a research staff member specializing in device physics at an American technology company named ‘International Business Machines Corporation’ (IBM). Lisa was then appointed as the vice president of IBM’s semiconductor research and development centre.

• In 2000, Lisa Su was given a year-long assignment as the technical assistant for Lou Gerstner who was IBM’s CEO.

• In 2001, the MIT Technology Review named Lisa ‘Top Innovator Under 35’ for her work with Emerging Products.

• In 2007, she quit IMB and started working as the chief technology officer (CTO) of the former American semiconductor manufacturer named ‘Freescale Semiconductor’ in which Lisa used to head the company’s research and development department.

• In 2009, she was appointed as the senior vice president and general manager of Freescale’s networking and multimedia group.

• In 2012, Lisa Su started working as the senior vice president of the American corporation and technology company named ‘Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD).

• Lisa worked closely with Microsoft and Sony to place AMD chips in Xbox One and PS4 game consoles.

• In 2014, AMD promoted Lisa Su to the position of president and CEO. She replaced the businessman Rory Read.

• In the same year, Lisa was paid a base salary of $1 million and a performance-based bonus of $1.2 million when she took over as CEO.

• Lisa has published over forty technical articles and was named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for having published more than 40 technical articles.

• She co-authored a book chapter discussing next-generation consumer electronics, as of 2016.

• In 2016, Lisa Su was named one of the ’50 Most Powerful Women in Technology’ by the National Diversity Council. She was also named in the list of ‘Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business.’

• In 2017, she was named in many lists including ‘People to Watch’ by HPCWire, ‘Top Ranked Semiconductor CEO’ by Institutional Investor Magazine, and ‘World’s Greatest Leaders’ by Fortune.

• In the same year, she was named in the list of ’50 Most Powerful Women in Technology’ by the National Diversity Council for the second time.

• In 2018, Lisa was ranked on 6th position in Fortune’s list of ‘Businessperson of the Year.’

• In the same year, Lisa Su was appointed as the Board of Directors Chair of the Global Semiconductor Alliance.

• Lisa Su was the first woman ever to top the Associated Press’s annual survey of CEO compensation with her pay package being valued at $58.5 million in 2019.

• In 2019, she was named ‘The World’s Best CEO of 2019’ by the American weekly magazine named ‘Barron’s.’

• In the same year, she ranked 44th in Fortune’s ‘Most Powerful Women in Business’ list and 26th in ‘The Best-Performing CEOs in the World’ list of Harvard Business Review.

• Lisa became the highest-paid CEO for 2019 of any company on the S&P 500 index of the 500 largest publicly-traded U.S. companies. As per the annual review, she received $58.5 million in 2019.

• In 2020, Lisa Su was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• In 2021, she was named and appointed as a Member of the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology by the 46th President of the United States Joe Biden.

• In the same year, Lisa was inducted into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame.

• In 2021, Lisa was the first woman to receive the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal.

• In the same year, she was ranked 49th on the Forbes list of ‘100 Most Powerful Women’ after being credited for the 25-fold increase in AMD’s stock since she became CEO in 2014.

• In 2022, Lisa became Chair of AMD after completing a reported $49 billion acquisition.

  

• In the same year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) named its new building 12 under Lisa Su’s name. The building was dedicated to nanotechnology research.

  

• In 2023, her total compensation from AMD was $30.3 million.

• In the same year, Lisa Su was ranked 49th in Forbes’ list of ‘World’s 100 most powerful women.’

• In 2024, she was included in many lists and some of them are Time’s 2024 list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in AI’ and Financial Times’ list of ‘the 25 Most Influential Women’ in 2024.

• In the same year, Lisa Su was named ‘CEO of the Year’ by Time.

• At ‘Advanced Micro Devices’ (AMD), Lisa Su holds weekend meetings and frequently communicates with employees late at night while expecting responses even after midnight.