John C. Sakamoto is vice president and general manager for the Data Center and Communications businesses in the Programmable Solutions Group at Intel Corporation. He guides teams working with customers in leading areas for FPGA use---including data center acceleration, NFV, and wireline and wireless infrastructure. Sakamoto joined Intel in 2015 with the acquisition of Altera Corp., where he had served most recently as vice president for integration planning. Before being appointed to lead the integration team, Sakamoto had spent three years as vice president and general manager of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Based in London, he was responsible for overseeing Altera’s sales, technical support, strategic accounts and channel strategy throughout the region. Earlier in his Altera career, Sakamoto managed the company’s operations organization, which included team members in Silicon Valley and Penang, Malaysia. His responsibilities in that role encompassed supplier management, planning, quality and reliability, worldwide customer service, and tester hardware development. Sakamoto spent his first years at Altera managing various business units dedicated to wireline, computer, storage, medical, test and military applications. He also managed international customer marketing and the European business operations groups, with teams in China, Japan, and Ireland. Before joining Altera, Sakamoto was an ASIC design engineer at Hitachi America Ltd. Sakamoto holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.