Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich quit Thursday after the company learned of "a past consensual relationship with an Intel employee."

Company Chairman Andy Bryant told employees Intel recently learned of the relationship and determined it violated "Intel's non-fraternization policy, which applies to all managers." The company said it therefore accepted Krzanich's resignation.

Intel appointed chief financial officer Bob Swan as interim CEO and said it will hire a search firm to seek a long-term successor for Krzanich.

Intel said it hasn't made any severance payments to Krzanich.

"The investigation is ongoing, and the board reserves the right to act in the best interest of shareholders," a company spokesman said. Intel maintained the relationship was consensual but declined to say what it is investigating.

Intel shares fell 2.3 percent Thursday to $52.22. The stock remains near its highest point since the dot-com era.

A veteran of the company's manufacturing arm, Krzanich, 58, joined Intel in 1982 as a junior engineer at a factory in New Mexico. He is married with two daughters.

Though Krzanich worked at Intel headquarters in Silicon Valley, the company's largest and most advanced operations are in Washington County. Intel employs about 20,000 in Oregon, more than any other business.

As CEO, Krzanich oversaw the biggest restructuring in company history. He eliminated 15,000 jobs around the world in 2016 as the company moved to reduce its dependence on PCs and laptops.

The layoffs and buyouts proved wrenching for the company, embittering many current and former employees. Federal watchdogs are investigating Intel over former employees' allegations that the company practiced age discrimination because the cuts disproportionately affected older employees.

But Intel weathered declining growth in its PC business and posted steady revenue growth, with sales climbing 5.7 percent last year to nearly $63 billion due largely to a growing market for Intel chips in computer servers.

Jim McGregor, a longtime Intel watcher and analyst with TIRIAS Research, noted that Krzanich's departure coincides with ongoing upheaval in its business.

"This is an opportunity for the board to really take a hard look and change the company vision, the company culture, with a strong management structure – with somebody that can come in and lead the company through these transition periods," McGregor said.

Intel said its non-fraternization policy took effect in 2011. Krzanich's predecessor, Paul Otellini, met his wife at Intel; Krzanich's own wife, Brandee, is a former Intel factory engineer who worked for the company at the time he was a manufacturing executive.

Businesses, public agencies, universities, media outlets and other organizations are all taking a markedly different approach to employee relationships in light of a flurry of sexual misconduct revelations over the past year.

Earlier this year, for example, Nike’s president resigned and several other managers and executive left over allegations of improper conduct in the workplace.

McGregor said Krzanich's exit is a sign of the times given heightened sensitivity over relationships between managers and employees, even those that are nominally consensual.

"In today's environment it doesn't matter. You can't do that," McGregor said. "It opens the company up to liability because it has to be somebody underneath him, somewhere."

Also Thursday, Intel increased its quarterly sales forecast to $16.9 billion, up from $16.3 billion. The company said it expects adjusted profits of 99 cents per share, up from a prior forecast of 85 cents.

The five years Krzanich ran Intel were a period of enormous change for the company. It spent more than $30 billion on a pair of acquisitions, acquiring programmable chipmaker Altera and Israeli autonomous driving company Mobileye.

And Krzanich courted favor with the Trump administration. He appeared in the Oval Office last year to tout the new president's economic policies, and Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the corporate tax cuts, which are worth $1.3 billion to the company this year alone.

Intel has historically hired from within and has a number of potential internal candidates to take over for Krzanich. Swan, the interim CEO, was formerly CFO at eBay and served as CEO of online grocer Webvan.

Another candidate could be former Qualcomm executive Venkata "Murthy" Renduchintala, now president of Intel's largest business groups.

Intel paid Krzanich $21.5 million in 2017, up from $19.1 million the prior year. The company justified his raise because of a sharp rise in the company's stock price, up 27 percent last year.

Intel said it paid Krzanich $1.2 million last year to cover unspecified "personal security arrangements," the second year in a row that Intel has paid more than $1 million to cover such costs for him.

The company said it did so after evaluating "the need to respond to specific Intel-related incidents and threats" and consulting with law enforcement and private security firms.

Intel never specified what kinds of threats its executives face.

In 2016, Krzanich shifted his California voter registration to confidential, which requires "a showing of good cause that a life-threatening circumstance exists to the voter or a member of the voter's household." The change had the effect of making his party affiliation and home address secret.

California courts sealed his petition for confidential voter status and denied requests from The Oregonian/OregonLive to explain the basis for the seal.

On Thursday, Intel said the security arrangements and confidential voter status were not connected to the relationship that cost Krzanich his job.

He came under fire last year for selling Intel stock before disclosing the "Meltdown" and "Spectre" vulnerabilities in its microprocessor design, which could allow hackers access to passwords and other private information on their computers.

Intel has made a long series of executive changes in the last three years, replacing its president, chief financial officer, chief information officer, data center chief and several other top positions. Many of the departures have been longtime Intel insiders, often replaced with accomplished executives Krzanich hired away from other companies.

As CEO, Krzanich campaigned for increasing diversity in Intel's work force by hiring women and underrepresented minorities. The company's work force remained overwhelmingly male and primarily white and Asian, but Krzanich claimed progress.

And Krzanich had a mixed record of establishing female leadership. Many of Intel's top women executives left during Krzanich's tenure, including former president Renée James, chief operating officer Kim Stevenson and data center chief Diane Bryant.

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699