Cristiano Amon will take the reins at Qualcomm on July 1, the company announced Wednesday, making him the fourth CEO in the telecommunication company’s 36-year history.
The San Diego-based wireless pioneer reported in January that Amon would succeed Steve Mollenkopf following his decision to step down at the end of June.
Amon has worked for Qualcomm for 26 years and “played a critical role in not only setting strategy and managing day-to-day operations, but in driving an industry-leading roadmap, expanding and diversifying our business beyond mobile into automotive, compute, infrastructure/edge, IoT, RF Front End, connectivity, networking, and of course, overseeing the successful acceleration and rollout of 5G,” the company said.
“We have been at the forefront of innovation for decades and I look forward to maintaining this position going forward,” Amon said in a statement. “In addition to driving the expansion of 5G into mainstream devices and beyond mobile, Qualcomm is set to play a key role in the digital transformation of numerous industries as our technologies become essential to connecting everything to the cloud.”
Amon began his Qualcomm career in 1995 as an engineer. Prior to becoming CEO, he served as president of Qualcomm and is also on the company’s board of directors. Previously, Amon led Qualcomm’s semiconductor business, and held several technical and business leadership positions, which included having overall responsibility for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platforms.
Prior to his time at Qualcomm, Amon served as chief technical officer for Vesper, a wireless operator in Brazil, and held leadership positions at NEC, Ericsson and Velocom.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and an honorary doctorate from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is the co-chair of the Council for IoT at the World Economic Forum’s Center for 4th Industrial Revolution.
Qualcomm employs more than 41,000 people.
— City News Service contributed to this article