Cristiano Amon

Amon was born in Brazil and grew up in São Paulo. In 1988 he enrolled in the electrical engineering program at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), developed an interest in wireless communications during his studies, and graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering.⁠[1][2]

After graduating, he joined the Brazilian unit of the Japanese electronics company NEC and was soon transferred to Tokyo. While working in Tokyo, he frequently traveled to San Diego for meetings with Qualcomm, then a rising company, and was subsequently hired by Qualcomm.⁠[1]

In 1995, Amon joined Qualcomm as an engineer. By 1996, he was responsible for selling Qualcomm’s wireless communications equipment in Latin America.⁠[3][1]

In the late 1990s he left Qualcomm for a short stint at the telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson; around the time the dot-com bubble burst, he then joined VeloCom, an investor in several Latin American telecom carriers.⁠[1]

Sent by VeloCom, he became chief technology officer of Vésper, a bankrupt and loss-making Brazilian wireless operator, was later promoted to chief operating officer, helped turn the company around, and in 2003 sold Vésper to its larger rival Embratel.⁠[1][3]

In 2004, Amon returned to Qualcomm and worked his way up through the company’s chip business, often working closely with Steve Mollenkopf in the same division.⁠[1][2]

From 2008, he managed the product roadmap of QCT, Qualcomm’s semiconductor business unit, and had overall responsibility for the Snapdragon platform, during a period in which the company built its chipset business in China and expanded into adjacent markets.⁠[4][3]

From around 2012, Amon was responsible for Qualcomm’s semiconductor business, first as co-president of QCT, and joined the company’s executive committee.⁠[4]

From around 2015, he served as president of QCT and as executive vice president of Qualcomm Technologies.⁠[4]

On December 26, 2017, Qualcomm announced that Amon would be promoted to president of Qualcomm Incorporated, effective January 4, 2018, responsible for developing and driving key strategies for the company’s core and new businesses while continuing to lead QCT and reporting to chief executive officer Steve Mollenkopf.⁠[4]

As president, he spearheaded Qualcomm’s 5G strategy and its acceleration and global deployment, drove the expansion of the business into areas including automotive, computing, virtual and augmented reality, networking, and industrial, and oversaw acquisitions in areas such as advanced driver assistance, spatial computing, advanced CPUs, and RF front end.⁠[3]

On November 25, 2019, his alma mater, the State University of Campinas, awarded Amon an honorary doctorate at a ceremony in the auditorium of its School of Medical Sciences. The university council had approved the award on September 24 of that year, making him the university’s 29th and youngest honorary doctor.⁠[2]

On January 4, 2021, Qualcomm announced that its board had unanimously selected Amon, then 50, to succeed Steve Mollenkopf as chief executive officer, effective June 30 of that year. In addition to serving as president and leading all QCT businesses and global operations, he was at the time co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s IoT Council.⁠[5]

On June 30, 2021, Amon formally became president and chief executive officer of Qualcomm and also joined the company’s board of directors.⁠[3]

On November 18, 2021, the board of directors of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) elected Amon as its chair for 2022, and Silicon Labs president Matt Johnson was elected vice chair.⁠[6]

On October 26, 2023, AdobeAdobeAdobe (Adobe Inc.) is a software company headquartered in San Jose, California, founded in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. Known for PostScript, PDF and creative software such as Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects, it moved its main creative products to Creative Cloud subscriptions from 2013 and expanded into digital marketing and generative AI; it is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker ADBE.Open the full entry announced Amon’s appointment to its board of directors, bringing the board to 12 members. At the time he was also a member of the President’s Export Council, vice chair of the U.S.-China Business Council, and a director of the nonprofit Father Joe’s Villages.⁠[7]

On August 27, 2025, Amon was named to TIMETIMETIME is an American newsmagazine and media brand founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, which published its first issue on March 3, 1923; it is headquartered in New York and known for its Person of the Year selection and the TIME100 list. Since 2018 it has been personally owned by Marc and Lynne Benioff; its current Chief Executive Officer is Jessica Sibley, and its Editor-in-Chief is Sam Jacobs.Open the full entry’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence. Under his leadership, Qualcomm invested heavily in AI research and development, treated AI chips usable across many industries and devices as a growth engine, and that year acquired the generative AI division of VinAI; he has described AI as becoming the new user interface.⁠[8]

On October 8, 2026, Sources, the podcast of tech journalist Alex Heath, released an interview with Amon recorded live at Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. Amon said that, without disclosing names, some of the companies at the forefront of artificial intelligence were telling Qualcomm that by 2028 they needed phones able to run a model of at least 100 billion parameters, running more or less all the time.⁠[9][9][9][9][10]

He argued that AI companies were starting to make phones, that the phone was important for agents, and that there would be a “battle of the agents”; AI agents that use people’s apps, understand their personal context, and act on their behalf would drive the next smartphone supercycle. He also said that memory prices had risen five- to sixfold, causing the phone market to shrink 20% in 2026, but that this was not a demand problem and there was now pent-up demand in the market.⁠[9][9][9][9][9]

Qualcomm: Official website: https://www.qualcomm.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]

Adobe: Official website: https://www.adobe.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]

X: Public account: https://x.com/cristianoamon (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cristiano-r-amon/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]