AMD announced today that Roy Taylor has joined the company as corporate vice president and head of Global Channel Sales, reporting to Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer John Byrne. In this role, Taylor will be responsible for managing and growing AMD's channel business globally.

"Roy is well known in the IT industry for his energy, his ability to identify new opportunities and his focus on delivering results," said Byrne. "I am extremely excited to have him join our team to take our channel business to the next level. Roy's enthusiasm and passion for technology evangelization will help strengthen our channel business as we bring new low-power APUs and discrete GPUs to market in 2013 that provide outstanding value, unmatched graphics capabilities and immersive user experiences."

A 25-year industry veteran, Taylor has had a multi-faceted career as a technology evangelist, content strategist and entrepreneur in both start-ups and established companies. He joins AMD from Rightware, a Finland-based software start-up where he was chief sales officer. Prior to Rightware, Taylor spent a decade at NVIDIA where he held a number of leadership roles including vice president Telco Relations, vice president Content Relations and CTO for PCGA (PC Gaming Alliance), vice president for GPU Sales and vice president of EMEA Sales.

An avid gamer and IT enthusiast, Taylor started his career in the component distribution business and was a founder of Addtron, a firm representing sales and marketing for semiconductor leaders such as Aureal, IBM Microelectronics, NEC, Nexgen, and others in Europe. Taylor holds a bachelor's degree in Business Studies from Maidstone College, Kent, United Kingdom.