Silicon veteran Tom Gall takes the helm as VP of Technology at RISC-V International.
On Friday, RISC-V International, the Switzerland-based non-profit behind the RISC-V instruction set architecture, announced that it has appointed Tom Gall as its vice president of technology. It appears that the VP technology role was created last year, largely to take the place of the organization’s CTO role that was previously held by Mark Himelstein, who stepped down in 2024.
In the roll — he replaces Andrea Gallo, who left the position in May to become the organization’s CEO –he will be tasked with defining the overall technical strategy for the ISA, seeking to strengthen engagement from stakeholders and nurture the organization’s membership through collaborative efforts.
“Having worked across many architectures, open standards, and consortia over the years, I’ve seen what can be achieved through open, community-driven collaboration,” Gall said in a statement. “Joining RISC-V now feels like the right time to put my experience to work where it can have the greatest impact — whether that’s boosting adoption as the ISA matures, helping our members navigate the latest compliance work, or advancing the timely ratification of key extensions like matrix and security.”
Gall seems to be a good fit for the job. He brings much of the same experience to the position as Gallo, with both having long careers at another silicon-focused non-profit, Linaro, which is purposed with reducing fragmentation in the Arm ecosystem. CEO Gallo spent more than 11 years at Linaro, with the last five years being spent as the organization’s VP of business development. Gall was there for more than 13 years, leaving in October as the ecosystem director.
Before Linaro, Gall spent nearly 21 years at IBM, leaving as a senior software engineer.
According to an article on the RISC-V International website, before being officially hired Gall had a chance to get acquainted with the organization — and probably also catch up with Gallo — at this year’s RISC-V Summit North America, which took place in Santa Clara in late October. He said this gave him the opportunity to connect first-hand with a number of people at the organization, and with the ISA’s greater ecosphere.
“Collaboration has long been the driving force behind RISC-V’s growth, and no-one understands the power of collaboration better than Tom,” Gallo said. “He has built a career around fostering partnerships, from early-stage startups to would-be competitors, academic institutions to global tech giants. I’m thrilled to welcome his proven leadership and strategic counsel, grounded in deep technical expertise and always leading by example, to RISC-V International.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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