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Cristiano Amon is an engineer. He is currently the CEO and President of Qualcomm, a large semiconductor research and development company. Amon was born circa 1970 in Brazil, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering. Mr. Amon began his career working on wireless technology for early cell phone networks. He oversaw Qualcomm's 4G and 5G technology, used in most Android devices. He also played a role in Qualcomm's diversification beyond the cell phone industry  and negotiated for more processors from suppliers during shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Early life and education
Amon was born and raised in Campinas, State of Sao Paulo in Brazil. in circa 1970  He developed an interest in wireless technology in college and earned a Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Universidade Estadual de Campinas i.

Early career
Amon started his career working for telecommunications companies during the early development of cell phone networks. His first position out of college was with NEC's Brazilian arm. For that position, he moved to Tokyo, Japan and frequently travelled to San Diego, California to meet with Qualcomm. In 1996, Amon was hired by Qualcomm to help the company expand in Latin America. A few years later, Amon left Qualcomm. He worked for Ericsson for a short while, then joined VeloCom, an investment firm focused on the telecommunications industry. While there, he was assigned to work at Vésper, a struggling telecom company that was nearing bankruptcy. Amon worked for the Brazilian telecom company as its chief technology officer and chief operating officer until it was profitable. Then, Vésper was sold to competitor Embratel in 2003.

Qualcomm
Amon starting working for Qualcomm again in 2004. He received several promotions over the years, serving as SVP of product management, EVP of Qualcomm Technologies, and President of Qualcomm's CDMA division. Amon was an important figure in the development of Qualcomm's 4G technology and the growth of Qualcomm's Snapdragon semiconductors, which are now used in most Android devices. He also expanded Qualcomm's sales with smartphone manufacturers in China. Amon oversaw Qualcomm's expansion outside of cell phones into semiconductors used in cars, computers, 5G infrastructure, robots, industrial applications, virtual reality devices, and other electronic devices. During Steven Mollenkopf's tenure as CEO of Qualcomm, Amon was responsible for Qualcomm's 5G strategy. He was responsible for improvements in Qualcomm's radio processors that are partially responsible for Qualcomm's market-share in 5G devices. Amon was appointed President of Qualcomm in 2018 by then-CEO Mollenkopf. He led a $1.4 billion acquisition of a company founded by former Apple executives called Nuvia and re-focused it on CPUs for consumer products, instead of data centers.

CEO
In January 2021, Qualcomm announced Mollenkopf was retiring and Amon would take his place as the CEO and President of Qualcomm. This was consistent with Qualcomm's history of appointing engineers to the CEO position. Amon's predecessors were Irwin M. Jacobs (co-founder), Paul E. Jacobs and Steven Mollenkopf. A first challenge for him in his new position was to alleviate the shortage of integrated circuits for the customers of Qualcomm. Shortly after Amon was appointed to the CEO position, the COVID-19 pandemic caused supply shortages for the processors used in Qualcomm's chips. Amon secured a competitive advantage for Qualcomm by successfully negotiating for more processors than competitors were able to get from suppliers. Amon indicated his goals to expand in the fields around augmented reality, virtual reality and automotive technology.

Personal life
Amon serves on the board of the San Diego Harbor Police Foundation, which collects money to fight against human trafficking. He is married and has three children.

Affiliations
2022: Chairman Semiconductor Industry Association.

Honors

 * Doctor honoris causa degree from his alma mater UNICAMP (Universidade Estadual de Campinas), São Paulo.