Broadcom has initiated plans for a new CFO tied to the upcoming retirement on long-time executive Kirsten Spears, with the replacement coming from Google owner Alphabet.

Amie Thuener is set to replace Spears on June 12, which is about half-way through Broadcom’s third fiscal quarter. Spears will serve as an advisor for up to nine months following that date “to ensure a smooth transition.”

Spears has been at Broadcom for 12 years, initially serving as VP and corporate controller of Avago Technologies, which moved to acquired Broadcom in mid-2015. Spears took on the role of CFO and chief accounting officer (CAO) of the renamed Broadcom in late 2020.

Thuener had previously spent eight years as CAO and corporate controller at Alphabet. Thuener informed Alphabet on March 30 plans to resign from that position effective April 9, to “pursue another professional opportunity,” with the firm adding that the move was “not due to any disagreement over the company’s operations, policies, or practices, suggesting no underlying governance or accounting dispute associated with the change in a key finance role.”

Prior to Alphabet, Thuener worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers as managing director in the firm’s transaction and accounting advisory services division.

"On behalf of the board, I want to thank Kirsten for her significant contributions and dedication to Broadcom over the past 12 years," Broadcom CEO Hock Tan noted in a statement. "We are pleased to welcome Amie to Broadcom. She will bring deep experience in financial reporting, corporate governance, AI-related transactions and leading complex, global organizations to the company as we continue to focus on creating value for our shareholders."

Broadcom riding AI high

Broadcom posted robust earnings for its most recent fiscal quarter, numbers backed by continued strong demand for its AI-focused semiconductor offerings that vendor management said it expects to continue through the rest of its current fiscal year, and growth that it said is based on strategic asset planning.

Broadcom reported $19.3 billion in revenues for the first quarter of its fiscal 2026, which was 29% higher than it reported for the same quarter last year and more than 50% higher than what it reported for Q1 of fiscal 2024. The latest growth was on the back of Broadcom’s Semiconductor Solutions business, which posted an out-sized 65% year-over-year revenue growth increase to $12.5 billion in the latest quarter.

While Broadcom’s semiconductor business showed robust growth, its infrastructure software business was muted. That division, which includes Broadcom’s VMware operations, posted just 1% year-over-year growth during the quarter, an amount that was down significantly from the 19% growth posted during the final fiscal quarter of last year and the 47% growth reported for the first quarter of fiscal 2025.

Despite the slowed growth, Tan touted that VMware-specific revenues increased 13% year-over-year during the most recent quarter, with total bookings during the quarter in excess of $9.2 billion, and the executive also dismissed any notion that AI-type services have impacted this business.

“Let me reinforce that this growth in our infrastructure software business reflects our focus and investments in foundational infrastructure, and our infrastructure software is not disrupted by AI,” Tan said. “In fact, VMware Cloud Foundation, VCF, is the essential software layer in data centers, integrating CPUs, GPUs, storage, and networking into a common, high-performance private cloud environment as the permanent abstraction layer between AI software and physical chips. … VCF cannot be dis-intermediated or replaced.”