Cadence just announced today that it has elected Lip-Bu Tan, 49, as its new CEO.

His technical background is in Nuclear Engineering.  From what I can tell,
he worked at EDS Nuclear and ECHO Energy as a design engineer doing structural
engineering work.  This was back in the 1980's.

    Education: BS Physics, Nanyang University, Singapore
               MS Nuclear Engineering, MIT
               MBA, University of San Francisco

Right before going to USF for his MBA, Lip-Bu worked for a few years as a CFO
at some unnamed software start-up that was later acquired.  After getting his
MBA, Lip-Bu worked as a "consultant" at Chappell & Co. on energy investments.

At 25, Lip-Bu joined a VC firm called the Walden Group in San Francisco.  He
focused on doing VC funding in Asia.  Not soon afterwards, in 1987, he founded
Walden International and specialized in bringing American investors to the
Asian market.  In 2004, Walden International joined the $1 billion club.

Being a Made Man, Lip-Bu's one of those guys on lots of boards:

    Member of the Board of Cadence Design Systems (2004-)
    Member of the Board of Flextronics (2003-)
    Member of the Board of SMIC 
    Member of the Board of Creative Technology 
    Member of the Board of ISSI 
    Member of the Board of MindTree Consulting 
    Member of the Board of Occam Networks 
    Member of the Board of Sina 

    Member of the Board of Fabless Semiconductor Assoc VC Advisory Board
    Member of the Board of IBM VC Advisory Board
    Member of the Board of National Venture Capital Association
    Patron of the Singapore American Business Association

    Trustee of the University of San Francisco
    Trustee of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
    Governor of Regent College

    Trustee of the Asia America MultiTechnology Association
    Member of the Committee of 100 
    Bush-Cheney '04
    Member of the Board of the San Francisco Opera
    Elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
    Director of the Bay Area Rescue Mission
    Co-chair of Head Royce School's $10 million dollar capital campaign 


Privately, he's known as the real brains behind Walden.  That is, he's NOT a
figure head fronting for more brilliant people working under him.  The guy
has a real knack for raising funds in the Asian market.  I've heard he's
invested in SMIC and (unconfirmed) that Lip-Bu was one of the Cadence board
members who had brought Mike Fister in to lead Cadence.


Although Lip-Bu Tan doesn't come from an EDA background, as a 5 year member
of the Cadence board, he's not a totally clueless newbie to EDA either.  He
might be the right medicine for a new restored Cadence -- or he might be yet
another sad continuation of Mike Fister's let's-milk-this-cash-cow policies.

Like another new president who's been in the news a lot lately, I think his
first 90 days in office will say everything we'll need to know.

    - John Cooley
      DeepChip.com