More musical chairs
Chip maker AMD is subject to many descriptions: plucky, innovative, frustrating and even baffling, but never boring.
At a time when a bit of continuity might be just what the doctor ordered AMD is going through a period of profound upheaval. In recent months it has changed CEOs, split itself in two and got through a frankly careless number of execs. This trend shows no sign of abating.
Yesterday we reported that AMD was cutting a further 500 people from its global operations in a bid to attain profitability for the first time since it bought ATI Technologies over two years ago. Then we exclusively revealed that among these casualties will apparently be their main man in Eastern Europe - Pierre Brunswick.
All this is happening at a time when AMD is changing its EMEA leadership on a regular basis and it doesn't look like the musical chairs is going to end there, as we believe there will be more executive news coming next week.
As we've reported before, there are at least a couple of AMD EMEA execs that must feel they could be in the picture for some kind of promotion. On the marketing side Jochen Polster is currently director or VP of marketing for AMD EMEA and Giuseppe Amato is director of the Value Proposition group and was former EMEA boss Alberto Macchi's right hand man before he was moved aside.
In our mind, other than the job title, a move from their current position into Brunswick's vacated role shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as a promotion for either of these two, but taking on the Eastern European sales operation in addition to their existing responsibilities certainly would. Another possibility would be for new EMEA head Alberto Bozzo to absorb Brunswick's former burdens.
