Advanced Micro Devices said in notes with Securities Exchange Commission that its chief operating officer, Robert Rivet, left the company on Tuesday after eleven years at the world's second largest support of x86 microprocessors. The company also noted that Marty Seyer, corporate strategy officer, would also leave AMD.

AMD announced to the SEC that "Mr. Robert J. Rivet will be leaving the company. Effective February 8, 2011, Mr. Rivet will no longer serve as an executive officer of the company," a note by the chip designer reads. No reasons for the resignation were revealed. Besides, Marty Seyer senior vice president (SVP) and corporate strategy officer will also resign from AMD immediately with no obvious reasons given. Following the resignation of AMD's chief executive Dirk Meyer in January, the company is clearly changing its executives, something which may point to a significant shift in strategy.

Robert Rivet joined AMD in 2000 as the chief financial officer. As the COO he oversaw AMD’s key centralized functions, including the company’s supply chain operations, human resources, and information technology organizations. Prior to joining AMD, Mr. Rivet served as senior vice president and director of finance of the semiconductor products sector of Motorola, now an independent corporation called Freescale. While Robert Rivet did not make major strategic decisions at the company, which means that his resignation cannot be clearly tied to the step down of CEO in January, he was clearly very influential and very important at AMD. Perhaps, the board of directors did not see how the potential of Mr. Rivet could further serve the company after it undergoes a major reformation.

Marty Seyer joined AMD in 2002 as the vice president of server business. In fact, the whole career of Mr. Seyer can be linked to server technology. Before joining AMD, Mr. Seyer was president and CEO of Penguin Computing, a leading vendor of AMD processor-based Linux servers. Previously, he spent six years at NCR Corp., where he served as vice president and general manager of high availability servers after holding positions of increasing responsibility. Prior to joining NCR, Mr. Seyer held senior product marketing and management positions with Dell, where he led Dell’s entry into the server market with the launch of the PowerEdge brand of servers. At AMD Marty Seyer firstly lead the development of AMD Opteron server business and then oversaw the corporate strategy of the chipmaker. Given the fact that the board of directors no longer wants an experienced server specialist to influence the strategy of the company, it may mean that the BOD does not see server chips and technologies as a top priority for AMD.

"Having made significant contributions to the company over the years, both are leaving to pursue new opportunities and are expected to remain through a brief interim period to help ensure seamless transitions," said Michael Silverman, senior PR manager at AMD global communications division.

John Docherty, senior vice president of manufacturing operations, has responsibility for all aspects of the product manufacturing process for AMD and will now report directly to Thomas Seifert, the interim chief executive of the company. Mr. Docherty, according to AMD, is playing a key role overseeing the transition to 32nm. He leads AMD's global operations organization, which includes AMD's assembly, test, mark and pack (ATMP) operations, supply chain, global supply management, global logistics, and sales and operations planning.

The corporate strategy team will report to Harry Wolin, SVP, general counsel and secretary.

Tags: AMD, Opteron, Business