Samsung Hires Top Talent from TSMC to Drive Semiconductor Growth

Samsung has been actively hiring top talent to bolster its leadership teams across several divisions. Some of the big names include PepsiCo’s Mauro Porcini and Apple’s Choi Jae-in. Now, a fresh report reveals that it also hired a former TSMC employee, Margaret Han, for its foundry unit. These hirings reflect the Korean firm’s desperate measures to resurrect its semiconductor business.

Samsung aims to bolster its semiconductor leadership team

Samsung’s semiconductor division has been struggling lately. It has not been able to attract key clients due to low process yield and other reasons. Despite being the second-largest foundry, the gap in market share and revenue to the industry leader, TSMC, has significantly widened. While Samsung has been adopting several strategies within its semiconductor division, it is still unable to catch up to its rival.

As part of its strategies, Samsung now aims to strengthen its semiconductor leadership team. According to FNNews, earlier this year, the company appointed Margaret Han as a general manager for its North American foundry business. She previously worked at TSMC for 21 years, handling North American business and customer responsiveness.

Han helped set up TSMC’s marketing and business development department for the North American market. After that, she joined Intel Foundry Services as a senior director in charge of global external production sourcing and supply chain management. Most recently, she was Vice President of Global Procurement at NXP Semiconductors, leading supply chain strategy and optimization.

Hiring a talent who previously worked for the company’s rival suggests that Samsung is moving quickly to strengthen its relationships with foundry customers. Since Han worked at major semiconductor companies and knows the North American market well, industry analysts expect that she could help secure new orders. Samsung has been building a new semiconductor plant in Taylor, Texas, to make advanced chips. It is looking for big orders from major AI semiconductor clients in the US, such as Nvidia, AMD, Tesla, and Amazon.