Artusi out at Conexant

Dan Artusi has been replaced at the broadband communications IC manufacturer by board member D Scott Mercer who will take over the CEO seat, and Christian Scherp, senior VP of worldwide sales, who has been promoted to president.

By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- Electronic News, 4/15/2008

Dan Artusi Monday exited Conexant Systems Inc, less than a year after taking the president and CEO seats at the fabless semiconductor company.

The move by Artusi comes after he took the position in July 2007, shifting to the Newport, Calif-based broadband communications IC manufacturer after serving in executive positions at ColdWatt, Silicon Laboratories, and Motorola. At the time, Artusi replaced CEO Dwight W Decker, a long-time company veteran who announced he was retiring in March 2007. Decker remains at Conexant as the company’s non-executive chairman.

Board member D Scott Mercer will take over the CEO seat, while Christian Scherp, senior VP of worldwide sales, has been promoted to president.

Conexant said Artusi had left the company to pursue outside opportunities. Monday’s announcement came just more than two weeks before the company is scheduled to provide fiscal Q2 numbers on April 29. Artusi was not quoted in Conexant’s press statement on the executive changes.
 
Meanwhile, Decker in the statement praised Mercer saying the company was “fortunate” that an executive of Mercer’s “caliber and experience” would be Conexant’s next CEO. “Scott has been a Conexant director for the past five years, so he is intimately familiar with the issues facing our company. I am confident that he will provide the strategic leadership Conexant requires to attain the next level of performance,” Decker said.

Mercer, who will continue as a company director, thanked Artusi for his service.

Mercer serves on the boards of Palm, Polycom, SMART Modular Technologies, and Adaptec, where he is chairman. In 2005, Mercer was named interim CEO at Adaptec. Before that, he spent a total of eight years at Western Digital in positions that included executive VP, chief financial and administrative officer, and senior VP and advisor to the CEO. He also spent five years at Dell and seven years at LSI Logic.

Scherp spent eight years with Infineon Technologies North America prior to joining Conexant in June 2005. In his last position at Infineon, he served as VP and general manager of the company’s wireless/wireline communications group. He was also VP of marketing for the wireline communications group, and VP and general manager of the communications group’s wide area networking business.

Conexant also announced that Christian Scherp, senior VP of worldwide sales, has been promoted to president, and that Sailesh Chittipeddi, senior VP of global operations, has been promoted to executive VP of global operations and CTO.