Warren East - Agenda Setters 2009

Name: Warren East

Title: ARM CEO

Position: 44    Last year: 10

Why? Powering the mobile electronics revolution

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Chipmaker ARM is the powerhouse behind the mobile revolution - the vast majority of the world's phones have at least one ARM processor which makes company CEO Warren East a very influential man indeed and an Agenda Setter for the second year in a row.

Growth in the smartphone and netbook markets have merely cemented ARM's influence, as one Agenda Setters judge noted: "Not everything has Intel Inside. Without ARM's grasp of the mobile CPU market we'd have hands free of so many smartphone platforms."

Another panellist pointed to the pervasiveness of ARM's chips - something the company has achieved by licensing its IP to partners, rather than having its own fabs with all the associated cost and risk. "Fab-less-ness and design, in the UK, are more important than production in an automated global economy," the judge added.

East has been CEO since 2001, presiding over a period of impressive growth in chip shipments as mobiles, smartphones, netbooks and other embedded electronics continue to proliferate. With little sign of a slowdown in consumer lust for gadgetry, ARM's reach looks set to increase.