Published in PC Hardware

Darren Grasby gets to run AMD CPU and GPU sales

by on13 April 2018


Reporting directly to Jim Anderson

Up until January, Darren Grasby an ATI sales veteran, was working as President EMEA and Global Channel Sales at AMD. A month later he was promoted to run Corporate VR Global Computing and Graphics Sales and president for AMD in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

He got a top sales job in the company and he will be working directly with Jim Anderson. Since June 2015, Anderson worked as a General manager and SVP of the compute and graphics business group and one of the driving forces behind Ryzen.

Grasby was working at ATI, then AMD and had several sales positions advancing all the way to Corporate VP and General Manager in EMEA between August 2007 and November 2014. From rom November 2014 until now he was promoted to the Corporate VP of Global sales and still kept the general manager of EMEA title.

The last title he got in October 2015 was the President EMEA and Global channel sales and now, he runs the top sales job for all CPU and GPU. Grasby was part of the golden team and worked closely with John Byrne at both ATI and later AMD, before the latter left for a bigger job and is now President North America Commercial Sales at Dell EMC.

Most recently, Grasby played an instrumental role in leading the teams responsible for driving the adoption of AMD Ryzen, AMD Radeon and AMD EPYC on a global scale.

Some people have left the sales machine for other companies and some people got a better end of the deal. This reshuffling is not unusual when someone gets a bigger job. You could call this a "transitional approach". Grasby now oversees all CPU and GPU sales and hopes that the firm can increase the sales to a big notebook and GPU customers. It is not a bad idea to have one person managing both sales at the highest level.

The channel business might have a big growth potential and there ought to be a place to grow with Ryzen notebooks with OEM and SMB (small medium business). EPYC sales are definitely picking up while the GPU is still selling well to data miners and occasionally to some desperate gamers.

Neil Spicer, part of this old European ATI sales school also got a more senior job and will be responsible for EMEA component channel, including all microprocessor business and graphics business. Grasby knows that it is all about building the best team and Neil deserved a better seat. The chap is pictured below, definitely has some dedication. 

NeilSpicer

Last modified on 13 April 2018
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