Leadership

Rich Templeton is chairman of the board of Texas Instruments. He became chairman in April 2008 and was president and chief executive officer from May 2004 through March 2023. He has served on the company's board of directors since July 2003.

From April 2000 through April 2004, Templeton was chief operating officer of TI. He was executive vice president of the company and president of TI's Semiconductor business from June 1996 through April 2004. In these roles, Templeton helped define and execute TI's strategy to focus on semiconductors for signal processing.

As CEO, he reshaped the company, focusing resources on growth opportunities in TI's core businesses of Analog and Embedded Processing. His strategic actions included the major acquisition of National Semiconductor and the successful wind-down of the company's wireless operations, which enabled resources to be more fully focused on areas of long-term return. Templeton led TI to become the global leader in analog integrated circuits, while still maintaining the company's strengths in embedded systems and digital signal processing.

Throughout this process, he maintained the company's strategic investments in R&D and manufacturing, while expanding the size of the sales and applications engineering team to better serve TI customers. Within the manufacturing arena, he oversaw the opportune purchases of capacity and equipment that positioned the company for future growth.

Templeton joined the company in 1980 after earning a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Union College in New York. He spent his operational career in the company's Semiconductor business, beginning in sales and eventually becoming president of the entire business.

He was among the top-ranked CEOs in Institutional Investor’s Best Semiconductor CEOs in America for several years.

In addition to his TI duties, Templeton has focused much of his external energies on public issues and initiatives that advance the high-tech industry, technological innovation and education, particularly STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. Under his leadership, the TI Foundation invested more than $60 million to increase the number of Black, Latinx and female high school graduates with strong math and science skills. This includes improving math and science learning outcomes and opportunities for students of color in North Texas who historically face economic and educational barriers. One of the hallmarks of these investments has been multiyear grants to area schools where STEM learning needs are significant, yet opportunities are low.

Templeton currently serves as Chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association and the board of trustees of Southern Methodist University. In addition, he has personally led the company's United Way campaign for many years, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of donations to a variety of charitable organizations, and he served as chair of the 2012-2013 United Way of Metropolitan Dallas campaign.