Broadcom announced the appointment of Charlie Kawwas, currently senior vice president and chief sales officer, as chief operating officer (COO).
Broadcom said Charlie Kawwas will be overseeing the company’s global operations, as well as continuing to be responsible for sales for the Semiconductor and Brocade Storage Networking businesses and corporate marketing for all of Broadcom.

Charlie Kawwas has been chief sales officer of Broadcom, responsible for sales and marketing across all business divisions, since June 2015. Charlie Kawwas joined the company through the LSI acquisition where he was head of worldwide sales.

Before joining LSI, Charlie Kawwas was the leader of Product Line Management for the Optical Ethernet and Multi-service Edge portfolio at Nortel.

Charlie Kawwas received a B.Eng. in Computer Engineering, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Broadcom recently named Tom Krause as president of Infrastructure Software Group, which oversees the chipmaker’s six software divisions.

Broadcom said its revenue rose 12 percent to $6.47 billion for the fourth quarter.

The company expects first-quarter revenue to be about $6.6 billion. Broadcom is seeing deceleration in orders for its wireless business, which was offset by strong demand for other products.

The global roll out of 5G technology is expected to boost sales of higher-priced chips used in next-generation smartphones, helping semiconductor firms such as Broadcom.