Tap SGS-Thomson exec as Novellus president

Electronic News, Nov 25, 1991 by Daniel Holden

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Daniel Queyssac, the chief operating officer of SGS-Thomson Microelectronics N.V., in January will succeed Robert Graham as president of Novellus Systems Inc., a supplier of chemical vapor deposition equipment.

Mr. Queyssac's joining Novellus had been expected (EN, Nov. 11). He will hold the titles of president and chief operating officer Mr. Graham, who has been president since 1986, will remain as chief executive and will take on the title of chairman, a new position.

"We're getting big enough that we need somebody to focus on the day-to-day operation of the company," Mr. Graham said last week. "And I want to take more of a role working with the financial community and developing our strategic plans," including market positioning, new product development and acquisitions.

"We always look for people who can take us to the next step," said Mr. Graham. "The entrepreneur can take the company through the product introduction and into early product introduction. What we're looking for now is people who can take us more toward a disciplined organizational structure. We need people who like to work in the larger company environment...a detail-oriented, bureaucratic, more formal organization.

"Mr. Queyssac's background is in a very large, very global semiconductor company, but he has built some smaller groups and gown them quite successfully. He'll give us what we need to put the organizational structure together and to ensure that we can still communicate well.

"We think he is the right guy to take us into the several-hundred-million dollar range," said Mr. Graham. Novellus is projected to have revenues of about $85 million this year and $120 million in 1992.

Mr. Graham said the search for a chief operating officer "has been a long time in the works." In 1989 Novellus hired a chief operating officer, George kern, who had been an outside director of the conmpany, but Mr. Graham said "that didn't work out very well.

"So you can see we've had that as a strategy for a very long time. We've just had trouble implementing it well."

Novellus looked at "an awful lot of people...seriously considering maybe six to 10 others" before settling on Mr. Queyssac, said Mr. Graham. Mr. Queyssac has been based in the U.S. in recent years as president and chief executive of SGS-Thomson Microelectronics USA.

"Dan came out to be the ideal person because of his good semiconductor background, his large-company background and his track record for success," said Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham said one area he will now be able to pay more attention to will be new acquisitions.

"There are a lot of opportunities out there, and we have a good cash position and can now consider acquisitions, either of technology or smaller companies," said Mr. Graham, adding that potential candidates "come across the transom maybe once a month, but we haven't had the time to really consider them. I tend to ignore them."

In an apparently unrelated development, Mr. Graham acknowledged that Scott G. Fulmer, Novellus' vice president of sales, has left the company.

"He just wants to pursue some other things," said Mr. Graham. "He came close to becoming independently wealthy working for this company, if not completely independently wealthy. Basically, he's off to take a shot at other things."

Mr. Graham said the decision was "pretty much" Mr. Fulmer's, although "There's never a time when the decision is all in one direction."