Three Questions with Dean Butler, Silicon Labs’ New CFO

Why did you decide to join Silicon Labs?

I'm super excited to join the superb team at Silicon Labs. The mission of the company to be the world leader in connectivity really resonates with me. I'm a big believer in the technology and business leadership that Silicon Labs has created, I see it at the heart of the future world we all live in: smarter devices, ultra-connected, which ultimately enables autonomous decision making. As an outsider, I often looked at Silicon Labs as the prime example of how to build a strong channel with a diverse set of customers, and an engineering team capable of building tremendous products connecting the rapidly growing number of devices around us in our everyday lives.

What excites you most about coming to work at Silicon Labs?

The thing I’m most looking forward to is interacting with our various stakeholders; both inside the company and outside. In the CFO role, I work with a lot of external audiences, but I really enjoy spending much of my time meeting with our employees across the globe. I often find myself at the intersection of engineering, marketing, product management; and really enjoy helping our teams to capitalize on the market opportunity ahead of us. I'm a real believer that this is truly an exciting time for Silicon Labs, with a strong commitment to its core markets and an increased focus on execution Silicon Labs has the potential to be one of the fastest growing businesses in the semiconductor industry.

How do you spend your free time?

In my role, I'm constantly on the road, visiting investors and employees at different locations. At home, I am married and have a set of young kids, so I spend a lot of time with them. My daughter enjoys dancing ballet and hopes to enroll in the Austin Ballet Company in the fall, and my son has recently taken to the electric bass guitar. On the weekends, when I'm not doing family things, I enjoy home improvement projects – I’m surprisingly handy. Since I spend most of my time at work thinking about numbers/economics, company positioning, and how we can win; it is a nice counterbalance for me to be at home working with my hands and physically creating something. It gives me a nice balance between cerebral things and manual things; a bit of a yin and yang I suppose.