Qualcomm Hires GM’s Futurist

Qualcomm Inc. has hired Chris Borroni-Bird from General Motors Co., where he was director of advanced technology vehicle concepts, Bloomberg News reports.

Borroni-Bird joined the San Diego, Calif.-based maker of mobile phone semiconductors this month as vice president of strategic development, according to his LinkedIn page.

Borroni-Bird began his career in 1992 Chrysler Group, where he led the effort to develop gasoline fuel cells and was appointed senior manager for technology strategy.

After joining GM in 2000, Borroni-Bird became director for the Electric Networked Vehicle, or EN-V, which developed the EN-V, a small electric vehicle that can be driven manually or guided automatically by a network. In 2010 he co-authored a book, Reinventing the Automobile, that focuses on the challenges of urban mobility.

Borroni-Bird earned a bachelor's degree in natural sciences and a Ph.D. In surface science from the University of Cambridge. He did post-doctoral research in surface science at the University of Tokyo.