University of Oregon alum and Intel president Renée James returned to the UO campus last term to serve as a member of the College of Arts and Sciences board of advisors and to meet with representatives from other colleges, schools and departments.

James' itinerary included a stop at the Lillis Business Complex. Prior to her individual session with Dean Kees de Kluyver, James met with a small group led by John Hull, the college’s assistant dean for centers and executive director of the Business Innovation Institute.

Hull gave James an overview of the Lundquist College’s centers of excellence and outlined the school’s pairing of hands-on, experiential learning with classroom-based instruction.

James shared her perspective on how the UO is seen from the outside and encouraged university leadership to consider areas of academic excellence to highlight the profile of the school overall.

“As a future Intel employee, it was a tremendous opportunity for me to meet the company’s president in a small group setting—and to know that she’s also a Duck. The alumni network at Oregon is what really sets this program apart,” said James Ball, MBA ’14, who will start at Intel as a financial analyst in August.

James, who received her undergraduate in 1986 and MBA in 1992 from the UO, has been called the driving force behind software at Intel for over 20 years and was elected president of the company in May of 2013. Fortune Magazine named her one of the fifty most powerful women in business in 2013, along with with Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer and Meg Whitman.

James began her career at Intel, the world’s largest and highest-valued semiconductor chip maker based on revenue, with the company's acquisition of Bell Technologies. She most recently served as executive vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group, where she was responsible for Intel's global software and services strategy, revenue, profit and product R&D.

- from the UO's Lundquist College of Business