Former Intel and Google cloud exec Diane Bryant is easing back into the saddle with new board roles
- One of Intel's most storied former executives, Diane Bryant, is quietly making a come-back in the tech industry.
- On Monday, Los Angeles-based video cloud company OwnZones announced that Bryant had joined its advisory board.
- This follows news earlier this year that she had joined Broadcom's board.
One of Intel's most storied former executives, Diane Bryant, is quietly dipping her toes back in the tech industry. On Monday, Los Angeles-based video cloud company OwnZones announced that Bryant had joined its advisory board.
OwnZones is an interesting company and an interesting choice for Bryant to join. OwnZones offers makers of TV, movie, and video content a way to easily convert video ino formats that can be streamed over the internet. Its technology is used, for instance, when a movie distributor like Mark Cuban's Magnolia Pictures wants to release its films on Netflix, YouTube and Tubi.
Interestingly, OwnZones was founded by a former Microsoftie, Dan Goman, who, back in the day, worked in Microsoft's Windows Media division. Bryant was at Intel during those days, the heyday of the so-called Wintel world.
Bryant left Intel in 2017, after a 32-year-career there, and resurfaced months later in December, 2017, as the COO of Google's cloud, under Google's then cloud chief Diane Greene. But it wasn't a fit and about 7 months later she left Google, too. (Months later, Greene also left Google.)
Her name came up again as a potential prospect when Intel was searching for its new CEO after Brian Krzanich resigned when he admitted to having an affair with a subordinate. Krzanich bounced himself into a new CEO job pretty quickly, leading automotive dealership software company, CDK Global.
At Intel, Bryant was the face of the Data Center Group, which booked $17 billion in revenue in 2016 - a huge business and one of Intel's high spots as its traditional PC market shrank. She was a frequent public speaker for Intel, known as one of the most powerful women in tech.
And she has an inspiring past: homeless at age 18 after graduating high school, she studied math at a then-free community college and got into engineering after someone told her it was a good-paying field. She landed at Intel and worked her way up the ladder from there.
In May, she gave $500,000 to that community college that changed her life. American River College, for its new STEM center, reports Fox40.
But Bryant has been mostly under the radar since she left Google.
Right now, she's doing board-of-directors gigs. She's on the board of United Technologies Corp (UTC), where she's served since early 2017. And in January, she joined Broadcom's board, one of Intel's fiercest competitors. She's also on the UC Davis Chancellor's Board of Advisors and UC Davis College of Engineering Board of Advisors.
The role at OwnZones is on the advisory board, not the board of directors.
Still, we've been expecting to hear news of her landing at a startup, or possibly her own CEO role, like her former colleague Renee James has done with her chip company, Ampere.
That hasn't happened yet, but as Bryant adds board and advisory roles to her docket, she's inching her way back into the tech scene again.