** Shares of Synaptics SYNA.O down 10.7% at $75.93 early Tues after co said its CEO departed to head Lumentum LITE.O

** San Jose, California-based artificial intelligence co late Mon said CEO Michael Hurlston stepped down to assume CEO role at Lumentum

** Hurlston to take the reins on Fri at Lumentum, which is also based in San Jose and makes optical products for cloud and AI applications, Lumentum said

** LITE shares up 1% at $85.11 early Tues

** Hurlston was Synaptics chief since 2019, and before that, he was exec VP of worldwide sales at Broadcom

** He succeeds Alan Lowe, Lumentum CEO since 2015. Lowe to remain on co's board

** Synaptics board appointed CFO Ken Rizvi as interim CEO and said began search for permanent replacement

** Co also released preliminary fiscal Q2 results; it expects rev of $267 mln vs Street consensus of $265.1 mln, and anticipates EPS to be above the mid-point of guidance provided in Nov

** With move on the session, SYNA shares have shed ~28% over the past year

** LITE shares were trading around $56.50 a year ago

(Lance Tupper is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)

((lance.tupper@tr.com 1-646-279-6380))