NEWS
Intel Applauds Results of Costa Rican Operations and Appoints Ileana Rojas as Global Vice President
- The CEO of Intel Costa Rica is the only vice president from Latin America – both a challenge and a responsibility to represent Costa Rican talent to the world.
- Costa Rican operations, which employ 3,100 people, are strategic for Intel.
December 2021. Intel Corporation has recognized the hard work and success of local Costa Rican operations in appointing Ileana Rojas as Vice President of the Global Design Engineering Group. She is the only person in Latin America to hold this position within the organization.
Since late 2019, Rojas has served as both General Manager and the Manager of Manufacturing and Product Engineering (MPE) for Intel Costa Rica – a critical operation in the server product roadmap. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been responsible for leading the transformation of Belén operations, services, and infrastructure, with the goal to opening an Assembly and Testing plant in a very short timeframe, while growing the Engineering Centers of Excellence and Global Services by hiring more than 1000 people – all, without pausing Intel’s existing operations.
For Ileana Rojas, this is an important accomplishment, even within the context of her 30-year career. More than new responsibilities, it demonstrates the growth opportunities that exist in Costa Rica. “This is a recognition of the passion, commitment, and positive impact of the 3,100 employees dedicated to Intel. We have shown that Costa Ricans can climb to the executive level in a multinational corporation and, in this way, contribute to the development of our country.”
Timothy Scott Hall, Government Affairs Director at Intel Costa Rica, added, “The Corporation recognizes Ileana’s leadership and the efforts of our employees who, throughout the pandemic and while working mostly remotely, have functioned as a team to achieve excellent results, positively impacting not only the corporation, but also the country’s economic and social development.”
Intel Costa Rica's operations are strategic for the Corporation as a whole, which has set itself the goal of rebalancing its supply chain and giving greater prominence to the Americas and the European region. All this, within the framework of its announced IDM 2.0 strategy – a differentiated formula that will deliver a new era of innovation, manufacturing, and product leadership on a global level. Digitalization, as driven by the cloud, artificial intelligence, edge computing, and 5G communications, is creating a new era of sustained demand for semiconductors in the world.
Intel in Costa Rica: High-Value Operations
Intel Costa Rica employs 3,100 people and generates more than 4,000 indirect jobs. The corporation’s high-value activities are divided into three major centers of excellence:
- The Research and Development Center (R&D): Currently the largest and the biggest exporter of this type of service in the country, dedicated to the design, prototyping, testing, and validation of integrated circuit solutions and platforms. 30% of Intel’s workforce is employed by the R&D Center.
- The Global Services Center: Designs, executes, and transforms multifunctional business processes at a global level, in Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, Sales and Marketing, and the supply chain. Another 45% of the workforce is employed here.
- Processor Assembly and Testing: 25% of the Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and Operations organization is employed here, where they assemble, test, and package some of the corporation's main servers.
The company currently has approximately 200 open job positions, which can be accessed only at
www.intel.com/jobs.
A Tale of Hard Work and Success
Ileana Rojas was born and raised in Pérez Zeledón, and is the daughter of educators. She studied at the Escuela 12 de marzo de 1948 primary school and the Unesco Lyceum secondary school, both public. She is a wife and mother of two daughters.
Rojas first graduated with a Certificate in Computing and began working at age 18. In her twenties, she learned English through a two-year program. While working, she went back to school and received a Bachelors of Engineering.
Today, Rojas is an Information Systems Engineer and a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM); she has also completed Leadership programs from the Darden School of Management for Extraordinary Results. Throughout her career, Rojas has remained passionate about increasing women's participation in STEM careers and is a certified Voces Vitale mentor.
Ileana Rojas was recently appointed Vice President of the Global Design Engineering Group. Additionally, since 2019, she has served as both General Manager and the Manager of Manufacturing and Product Engineering (MPE) for Intel Costa Rica. She is the first Costa Rican and the first woman to direct the company’s local operations. Rojas has worked for Intel since it launched Costa Rican operations in 1997.
Rojas brings to the table more than 30 years of experience in engineering management, information security, strategic planning, and operations across multiple business units, including Software Engineering, Hardware Engineering, Information Security, Intel Capital, Finance, and the Global Services Center.
Her solid track record includes bringing organizations to industry benchmarks while creating value from start to finish through cross-functional strategic initiatives. Rojas has served as part of the Intel Costa Rica leadership team for more than 20 years.
Rojas is responsible for leading local operations, which employ 3,100 direct positions while facilitating innovation, talent development, a synergy between groups, and strategic commitments within the ecosystem, including government, academia, and industry. She is also responsible for local operations in manufacturing and product engineering.
