Qualcomm Loses Second Channel Leader Amid Snapdragon X2 PC Chip Push

The departure of Qualcomm’s global commercial channel chief, Kyle Houser, happened four months after his boss, Vice President of Global Enterprise and Channel Sales Jeff Monday, left the chip designer. Both played important roles in building Qualcomm’s commercial channel.

Qualcomm’s global commercial channel chief has left the chip designer, marking its second major channel departure as it ramps up competition against Intel and AMD.

The global commercial channel chief, Kyle Houser, announced on LinkedIn last week that he resigned from the company after spending the past three-and-a-half years building Qualcomm’s global partner program “from the ground up” to boost commercial sales of the company’s Snapdragon X Series processors for PCs.

“Looking back, I’m truly grateful to the Qualcomm leadership team and our amazing partner community for the trust, collaboration, and friendships that made this journey so rewarding,” he wrote in his LinkedIn post last week

Addressing Qualcomm’s partners, Houser said, “You’re in great hands, and I’m confident the team will continue being one of the easiest, most nimble partners you work with.”

Houser, who was named to CRN’s 2025 Channel Chiefs list, announced in a separate LinkedIn post Friday that he has been hired as vice president of global sales, channels and partnerships by Fluence Energy, a publicly traded energy storage provider that started as a joint venture between Siemens and AES Corp.

The channel executive is joining his former Qualcomm boss, Vice President of Global Enterprise and Channel Sales Jeff Monday, who left the chip designer a little more than four months ago to become chief growth officer at Fluence Energy.

A Qualcomm spokesperson declined to say who has taken over channel responsibilities for Houser (pictured above) and Monday but reaffirmed the company’s commitment to the channel.

“Qualcomm remains committed to supporting and strengthening our channel partner program for Snapdragon X Series,” the representative said in an email.

Why Qualcomm’s Commercial Channel Efforts Are Important

The exits are coming at a critical time for Qualcomm’s Arm-compatible Snapdragon X Series processors, which represent the company’s revitalized push into the PC market after previous efforts failed to catch traction. With Intel and AMD dominating the PC market, Qualcomm hopes to grow from its small footprint and reach $4 billion in annual revenue by 2029.

This week the company revealed its mid-range Snapdragon X Plus chips for PCs under Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC banner. Qualcomm has been promoting its second-generation computer chips since September when the company called its new flagship Snapdragon X2 Elite processors “the fastest, most powerful and efficient” for Windows PCs.

Qualcomm debuted the first-generation Snapdragon X Series in June 2024 as the exclusive launch processors for Microsoft’s Copilot+ PCs, which allowed the company to beat Intel and AMD to the market in enabling exclusive, on-device AI features on Windows 11.

In an interview with CRN early last year, Monday called channel partners “super important” to Qualcomm’s $4 billion Snapdragon PC revenue goal in 2029 and said that its CEO, Cristano Amon, had made a “massive commitment” to funding partner programs. About 40-50 percent of unit sales were expected to come from commercial customers by then.

This commitment allowed the company last year to double channel funding, quadruple the size of its global commercial channel team and expand its roster of commercial channel partners by nearly 10 times to more than 100 partners. Monday claimed at the time that Qualcomm’s partner programs and funding were “hyper competitive.”

Houser played a critical role in building Qualcomm’s global commercial channel program, noting on LinkedIn that he “stood up a world-class commercial team spanning seven regions” and “drove impactful customer adoption” of Snapdragon X Series chips.

Like Monday, Houser joined Qualcomm from Apple, where he served in multiple sales and strategy leadership roles over 12 years. According to his LinkedIn profile, Houser delivered more than $250 million in revenue growth with Apple’s top U.S. partner, closed enterprise deals with Fortune 500 companies, grew enterprise Mac sales by 32 percent year-over-year through the Mac Employee Choice program and built the iPad services growth program.

Other Big Channel Departures In The Chip World

This isn’t the first time in recent years that a chip vendor lost two channel leaders in a short time span. In 2023, AMD lost North America Channel Chief Terry Richardson and Head of North America VAR Channels Marty Bauerlein within three weeks. Richardson’s successor, Mark Taylor, only lasted at the company for less than a year before leaving in 2024.

Longtime AMD sales executive Jason Mooneyham has since taken over as the company’s global commercial channel chief and North American channel chief, telling CRN in an interview last year that the firm is ramping up investments to build a “true channel program” that is competitive on many fronts.

Separately in 2024, Intel North America Channel Chief Jason Kimrey left the chipmaker and Global Channel Chief Trevor Vickers changed jobs as its Sales and Marketing Group underwent various changes. Michael Green, an Intel veteran who was previously the head of U.S. partner sales, took over Kimrey’s responsibilities in a newly configured role while Dave Guzzi, a longtime solution provider executive, was appointed global channel chief.