Cristiano R. Amon (born 1970) is a Brazilian electronics engineer and the CEO of

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, California, US.Patrick McGee
''Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon: You have to bet the company''.
Financial Times (ft.com), 23 January 2022. Retrieved 31 January 2022''Business Leaders: Cristiano Amon.''
marketscreener.com. Retrieved 1 February 2022.

Early life

Cristiano Amon grew up in

Campinas Campinas (, ''Plains'' or ''Meadows'') is a Brazilian municipality in São Paulo State, part of the country's Southeast Region. According to the 2020 estimate, the city's population is 1,213,792, making it the fourteenth most populous Brazilian ...

, State of

Sao Paulo SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Saco Transportation Center (station code SAO), a train station in Saco, Maine, U.S ...

, Brazil. His father was an electrical engineer. Son Cristiano chose to study electrical engineering at the

Universidade Estadual de Campinas The State University of Campinas ( pt, Universidade Estadual de Campinas), commonly called Unicamp, is a public university, public research university in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Brazil. Unicamp is consistently ranked among t ...

as well. Early on, he developed an interest in radio communications. He graduated in 1992. At the time, the first generation (1G) of cellular radio was in use.

Career

His first position out of college was with

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...

's Brazilian subsidiary. Soon, NEC transferred him to its headquarters in Tokyo to work as a system engineer in the field of digital cellular radio (2G). Qualcomm had developed and patented

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communication ...

technology for cellular radio. Amon frequently travelled to San Diego to meet with Qualcomm engineers. In 1995, Amon was hired by Qualcomm to help the company expand in Latin America. He left Qualcomm in 1999 for a short stint at

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

, a major supplier of cellular infrastructure. He then joined Velocom, a US

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

company with investments in telecom companies in Latin America. One of them was Vésper SA, a mobile telecom service provider in Brazil, where he became an officer helping to restructure this company. In 2004, he joined Qualcomm again.Alan H. Fleischmann
''Cristiano Amon.''
Leadership Matters, 23 August 2022. Retrieved 1 November 2022. During the following years, he assumed management positions in various fields. He oversaw Qualcomm's 4G and 5G technology, used in most Android devices. From 2018, he was in charge of the

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

business of the company, followed by tasks in strategic planning and integration of acquired companies.''Speaker Cristiano Amon.''
IAA Mobility. Retrieved 1 February 2022. Amon organized Qualcomm's expansion outside of cell phones into semiconductors used in cars, computers, robots, industrial applications,

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

devices and other electronic devices. In June 2021, he was promoted to the top position as CEO of the entire company.''Leadership: Cristiano Amon.''
qualcomm.com. Retrieved 31 January 2022 His predecessors were Irwin M. Jacobs (co-founder),

Paul E. Jacobs Paul E. Jacobs (born October 30, 1962) is an American businessman and the former executive chairman of Qualcomm. Family and education Jacobs was born to a Jewish family, the son of Joan (née Klein) and Irwin M. Jacobs. His father was co-f ...

and Steven Mollenkopf. A first challenge for him in his new position was to alleviate the shortage of

integrated circuits An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

for the customers of Qualcomm. Amon indicated his goals to expand in the fields around

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

, virtual reality and automotive technology.

Affiliations

2022: Chairman,

Semiconductor Industry Association The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is a trade association and lobbying group founded in 1977 that represents the United States semiconductor industry. It is located in Washington, D.C. One of the main achievements of the SIA was the cr ...

.''Cristiano Amon Elected Chair of Semiconductor Industry Association.''
marketscreener.com, 18. November 2021. Retrieved 31 January 2022

Honours

* Honorary doctorate from his alma mater UNICAMP (Universidade Estadual de Campinas), São Paulo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amon, Cristiano R. Living people 1972 births Qualcomm people Businesspeople from San Diego State University of Campinas alumni 21st-century Brazilian engineers American electronics engineers Brazilian chief executives