AMD Hires Ex-IBM Exec As New Global Sales Leader In Commercial Push

Phil Guido, a 26-year IBM veteran, is taking over AMD’s worldwide sales organization as the chip designer seeks to continue sales momentum for its CPUs in the data center and commercial PC markets while gaining new or greater footholds for AI, graphics and networking chips.

AMD has hired 26-year IBM veteran Phil Guido as its new chief commercial officer to ramp up competition against Intel and other rivals in the commercial PC and data center markets.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip designer said Monday that Guido, who also takes on the title of executive vice president, will lead the company’s worldwide sales organization, taking over responsibilities from Darren Grasby, who was AMD’s chief sales officer for the past eight years.

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In connection with Guido’s hiring, AMD said it moved Grasby, a 16-year company veteran who previously led global channel sales, into a new role as the chip designer’s executive vice president of strategic partnerships.

AMD Seeks To Grow Sales For Expanding Portfolio

AMD hired Guido as the 54-year-old company seeks to continue sales momentum in the key commercial PC and data center markets, where it has grown x86 CPU share against Intel over the past several years thanks to the success of its Ryzen and EPYC processors. In the first quarter, AMD’s share grew nearly 7 points year over year to 34.6 percent, largely thanks to gains in servers, according to Mercury Research.

At the same time, AMD is trying to gain new or greater footholds in commercial markets for AI, graphics and networking chips, in part through its recent acquisitions of Xilinx and Pensando. Last month, the company revealed its largest challenge yet to Nvidia’s AI dominance: the Instinct MI300X GPU, which it said provides better efficiency and cost savings for running Large Language Models—a type of AI model that has exploded in demand thanks to ChatGPT—than Nvidia’s flagship H100 GPU.

Now AMD is hoping Guido—who most recently was general manager and global managing partner of strategic sales at IBM Consulting—can help the company convince more businesses to adopt its growing portfolio of chips.

The chip designer lauded Guido for his “extensive experience in the market development of strategic customer relationships and transformative partnerships.” The company added that the longtime IBM executive has a knack for “helping customers realize business value through the adoption of leading-edge business solutions enabled by technology platforms.”

“Phil brings extensive enterprise and sales experience that will be incredibly valuable as we focus on deepening our enterprise partnerships and accelerating our growth in the data center, embedded and commercial markets,” AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su said in a statement.

New Sales Head Arrives After Key Channel Execs Leave

Guido is taking over AMD’s worldwide sales organization roughly three months after the chipmaker lost its two top channel sales executives in North America: Channel Chief Terry Richardson and VAR and Commercial Distribution Head Marty Bauerlein.

Richardson and Bauerlein, who were seen as key to AMD building stronger relationships with channel partners, left within three weeks of each other, with Richardson departing in mid-April to lead sales for GreenPages, which was just renamed to Blue Mantis, and Bauerlein exiting at the end of March to lead sales at D&H Distributing.

At the time of Richardson’s departure, the chip designer said it was “actively recruiting” to find a new North America channel chief. But nearly three months later, an AMD spokesperson told CRN that the company doesn’t have any updates yet on Richardson’s successor.

One solution provider executive told CRN that he hopes that AMD continues to stay competitive in the semiconductor industry and invest in channel partners.

“Partners are the key to success, and we want AMD to keep innovating technically and also investing in the channel,” said Worth Davis, senior vice president at Canadian IT service provider Calian Group.