Pankaj Patel, Senior Vice President Engineering co-leads Cisco’s engineering organization consisting of over 24,000 global employees. He and his co-lead, Padmasree Warrior are responsible for the development, strategy and execution of its $32 billion product portfolio. Patel focuses on core routing, mobility, video and cloud/managed services, as well as architectures for business transformation. In addition, Patel has responsibility for the company’s go-to-market strategies and customer value propositions for its $10 billion service provider business.

In previous roles at Cisco, Patel was one of the founding leaders of Cisco’s first multiservice access business unit, developing strategy for access routers and voice-over-packet technology and delivery. Additionally, Patel was responsible for the Cisco IGX product line and software development for all Cisco ATM switches. Patel joined Cisco through the company’s acquisition of Stratacom in 1996.

From 1999 through 2003, Patel was also senior vice president of engineering at Redback Networks and responsible for the development and delivery of all Redback products.

Earlier in his career, Patel was an entrepreneur who founded a consulting company focused on application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design, software, and computer-aided design (CAD) tools. Customers included EMC, Hewlett Packard, and other major corporations that looked to Patel’s firm to design ASIC technologies for their computing, storage, and networking products. Patel has also held various senior management positions at Apollo Computer/HP and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Patel is an industry member of the Dean’s Advisory Committee of UCLA’s School of Engineering, a member of the Strategic Planning Executive Committee at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, serves on the California State University Professional Science Master's Executive Board and recently joined the eASICS Board of Directors. He also serves on the Board of Directors of The Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute, which is dedicated to catalyzing and accelerating the discovery, development, and delivery of new and more effective treatment options for lung cancer patients