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Mary Anne Petrillo

Senior Marketing Manager, Digital Strategy

Corporate Social Responsibility

Ms. Petrillo brings an innovative marketing approach to her work on Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) global efforts. With an expertise in marketing education technologies, she has introduced creative ways to stimulate dialogue on how innovative technologies are being used to address some of today’s most difficult challenges.

Her responsibilities include the management of and content strategy for all digital platforms for Cisco CSR, including NetAcad.com -- home to Cisco’s IT skills and career building program, which attracts 1 million students annually. Ms. Petrillo also established and oversees the strategy for Cisco CSR’s social media presence. Her social strategy is to cultivate engagement through powerful personal storytelling, which demonstrates how Cisco’s CSR work can transform people’s lives and address timely challenges.

As part of her innovative approach to online engagement, in 2012 she spearheaded a partnership with the Huffington Post to create an editorial hub called Impact X to showcase stories of people and technology converging for social impact. The content on Impact X consistently generated an engagement rate 24% higher than the rest of Huffington Post. In 2013 Impact X won the Digiday Award for Best Branded Content Integration.

As the communication lead on the Cisco-Intel-Microsoft alliance for assessment reform, creator of the “World’s Largest Classroom” campaign for Cisco Networking Academy, and promoter of Cisco’s The Learning Society, her work supports the rapid evolution of education systems. In 2008 she created Cisco’s education leadership collaborative, www.GETideas.org to serve system leaders with a professional learning environment.

Ms. Petrillo is a strong advocate for the power of collaboration, online and offline. Recently she led the marketing efforts of the Cisco Women of Impact conference and brought together 1100 colleagues from 15 countries to participate in the fundraising event to support of the non-profit Girl Rising.

Before joining Cisco, Ms. Petrillo was Director of Marketing for several educational technology companies, including Scientific Learning, Kaplan K12, Achieva.com, and The Learning Company. Prior to that, she was a creative director responsible for brand strategy, video development, multimedia launch events, and website development.

Her work for Cisco CSR continues to demonstrate an understanding of the interdependency between social and business impact and the great opportunities it unlocks for innovation, growth, and sustainable social impact at scale.

Articles

Join Our Live #CiscoChat on June 16th – Women in Technology: Changing the World for Good

2 min read

The world is changing faster than ever. The Internet and mobile technology keep us connected in ways that have never been possible before, and those ways continue to grow and improve every day. As technology become more ubiquitous, how can it be used to change the world for the better? That’s the topic of our latest […]

Drones Give Humanitarian Aid a Lift

3 min read

Okay, I admit, the headline is a bad pun. But, what isn’t bad is the speed at which drone technology is being used to save lives before, during and after a devastating event. On April 11, I was invited to attend a Discovery Event at Singularity University at Moffett Field on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) […]

Cisco Launches New Corporate Social Responsibility Website

1 min read

Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has redesigned its external website csr.cisco.com. The new format makes it easy to find and share impact stories that showcase how Cisco CSR is benefiting people, communities, and the planet. Bringing together technology, partnerships, and our expertise are important reasons for the success of Cisco’s CSR public/private partnerships and its […]

A New Look for Corporate Social Responsibility at Cisco

3 min read

For years I suppose I was just like you, pretty cynical about the whole concept of “Corporate” social responsibility. Can an organization be truly socially responsible given the bottom line is selling product? Five years ago I left an industry I loved, education technology, and entered into the amorphous world of corporate social responsibility (CSR). […]

Cisco is Stepping Up and Leaning In with the Women of Impact Conference

2 min read

This post was written by guest blogger Jaclyn Lanasa, Enterprise Account Manager Cisco NYC. Jaclyn Lanasa & Olivia Shen Green are co-directors of the 2014 Cisco Women of Impact Conference About a year ago, Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers told his employees that Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” book had opened his eyes. He vowed to […]

How can the Internet of Everything Improve Our World?

2 min read

Join this week long public conversation on Twitter and Huffington Post Impact starting Oct. 7 The growth and convergence of people process, data, and things on the Internet – the Internet of Everything — is making networked connections more valuable and relevant than ever before, creating unprecedented opportunities for countries, businesses, and individuals around the […]

To Ignite Interest in STEM, Remember Our ‘Sputnik Moment’

3 min read

This blog was originally published on the Huffington Post As I watch the unfolding story of cyber outlaw Edward Snowden skipping around the globe, I’m struck by the talented young man who employers “fought over,” despite the fact that he had no formal STEM education. In contrast, the National STEM Conference in Austin last week […]

Cisco Shares Expertise on STEM Education at National Conference

2 min read

The U.S. National STEM Solutions Conference is just around the corner and the Cisco CSR team will be among the more than 2,000 business, education, and government leaders from around the United States in attendance at the Austin Convention Center from June 17 to 19, in efforts to continue change in STEM (science, technology, engineering, […]

A Half Million Likes on Facebook: Cisco Networking Academy Uses Social Media to Engage and Educate

3 min read

This post was written by Hilal Chouman, social media strategist for Cisco Networking Academy Since late 2009, Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad), one of Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, has been present on various social media networks. The earliest presence was on the rising social network of that time: Facebook. In late 2010, NetAcad’s Facebook […]

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