Lisa Su: The Public School Kid Who Revived a Silicon Giant

Before she became one of the most respected leaders in tech, Lisa Su was a shy child growing up in Tainan, Taiwan, with an early fascination for how things worked. Her parents encouraged curiosity and education above all else. When she was just three, her family moved to New York, where she grew up soldering wires and fixing electronics alongside her father.

Lisa Su was born in Tainan, Taiwan, and moved to New York City with her family at the age of three. She grew up in the Bronx, attending the Bronx High School of Science —one of the top public schools in the country. There, she gravitated toward math and science, but her real fascination was in breaking open gadgets to see what was inside.

Her parents encouraged that curiosity. Her father, a mathematician, and her mother, an accountant, valued persistence and problem-solving over quick wins. By the time she was in high school, Lisa was already spending afternoons soldering circuits and fixing broken equipment. That early love of engineering would define the rest of her career.

Lisa earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from MIT, specializing in semiconductor devices. Her technical expertise was rare—and in demand. She began her career at Texas Instruments, then moved to IBM, where she worked on breakthrough semiconductor technology and quickly rose through the ranks.

At IBM, she was known for tackling the hardest problems head-on. She led development on copper interconnects, a major innovation that made chips faster and more efficient. Later, she took on leadership roles at Freescale Semiconductor, where she combined engineering depth with business strategy. By 2012, she joined AMD as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Business Units—a company that was fighting for survival in a market dominated by Intel and NVIDIA.

Two years later, in 2014, Lisa was named CEO. AMD’s stock was languishing at around $2 a share, and many analysts doubted the company would recover. Competitors had outpaced AMD in performance, and the company’s roadmap was unclear.

Lisa made a bold bet: focus on high-performance computing, double down on innovation, and rebuild trust with customers. She reoriented AMD toward markets where it could win—PC processors, gaming consoles, and data centers—while also investing in new architectures. The launch of the Ryzen CPU line in 2017 was a turning point. AMD chips began outperforming Intel’s in key benchmarks, earning back market share and industry respect.

Under her leadership, AMD’s value skyrocketed. From 2014 to 2024, the company’s market capitalization grew from $2 billion to over $200 billion. She didn’t just stabilize AMD—she transformed it into a powerhouse driving the future of computing.

What made her stand out wasn’t just her technical brilliance, but her steady, long-term vision. She avoided hype cycles and focused on execution, earning a reputation for delivering exactly what she promised — often ahead of schedule.

Today, Lisa continues to lead AMD as it pushes into AI, cloud computing, and custom silicon for next-generation devices. She also serves on multiple boards and is one of the most prominent women in technology. Her rise wasn’t built on shortcuts — it was built on decades of solving hard problems and making bold, disciplined bets.

She’s not just running a company. She’s shaping the trajectory of an entire industry. And she’s doing it while breaking barriers for women and Asian Americans in executive leadership.

1. Master your craft.
Lisa built her career on deep technical expertise, which gave her credibility in high-stakes decisions.

2. Bet on innovation.
Her decision to invest in new architectures like Ryzen and EPYC was the catalyst for AMD’s turnaround.

3. Play the long game.
She focused on sustainable growth rather than chasing short-term wins.

4. Lead with calm and clarity.
In a competitive and volatile industry, she kept her teams focused on execution.

5. Break barriers by doing the work.
Lisa didn’t set out to be a “female CEO”—she set out to be the best in her field, and her results speak for themselves.

Lisa Su’s story is one of the clearest examples of how technical mastery and strategic vision can completely change a company’s fate. She didn’t inherit a thriving business—she rebuilt one from the ground up.

She’s a reminder that leadership isn’t about charisma or press headlines. It’s about seeing the opportunities others overlook, making the right calls when it matters most, and consistently delivering results.

Lisa isn’t just competing in the toughest tech markets in the world. She’s winning — and doing it in a way that will be studied in business schools for decades.