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Rob Salvagno

Vice President

Corporate Development and Cisco Investments

In his role as VP of Corporate Development and Cisco Investments, Rob Salvagno is responsible for leading all M&A and venture capital investments for Cisco. He manages Cisco’s strategic venture capital which invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the start-up ecosystem, helping anticipate the next set of market transitions, align with disruptive technologies, gain visibility into key geographies, and partner for innovative solutions.

Since joining Cisco in 2001, Rob has challenged the traditional model of corporate development, implementing a holistic strategy to accentuate Cisco’s technology portfolio, instead of individual deals. He led the execution of the $1.2 billion acquisition of cloud networking leader Meraki, one of the most successful platform acquisitions in Cisco’s history, and the $3.7 billion acquisition of AppDynamics, cementing Cisco’s place in the business intelligence, analytics and IT operations market. Most recently, Rob engineered the $2.3 billion acquisition of Duo, the leading provider of unified access security and multi-factor authentication delivered through the cloud.

To optimize external innovation as a mechanism for Cisco’s growth, Rob pioneered the creation of Cisco Investments, one of the most active and entrepreneurial-focused models for corporate venture capital in the industry. He co-architected the spin-ins of Nuova Systems and Insieme, spurring Cisco’s growth in data center and software-defined networking, and led the formation of alpha projects to accelerate cross-company innovation. He also helped develop and accelerate new opportunities in China through the creation of several joint venture projects in the region.

Outside of Cisco, Rob serves as a board observer for Cohesity, an industry-leading enterprise storage company specializing in platforms for hyperconverged secondary storage solutions. Prior to Cisco, Rob was a technology investment banker at U.S. investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

Rob earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University.

Articles

October 17, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Acquisition of Worklife

1 min read

I’m pleased to announce the acquisition of Heroik Labs, Inc. doing business as Worklife. Worklife is a privately-held company based in San Francisco, CA that provides software to improve meeting productivity. Worklife’s mission is to help teams be prepared and informed so they can run highly effective meetings. Their application enables people to be more […]

September 28, 2016

INNOVATION

Innovation, Transformation and Impact Through Investments and M&A – 2016 and Beyond

3 min read

One year ago, I became the new leader for Cisco’s Corporate Development team, leading Cisco’s acquisitions and investment strategy. The corporate development team was already firing on all cylinders, and this last year proved just how impactful we could be.  The past 12 months became one of the most active years in Cisco’s history, with […]

August 30, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire ContainerX

1 min read

I’m excited to share that today Cisco announced its intent to acquire ContainerX, Inc., Cisco’s first acquisition in the rapidly emerging container market. ContainerX is an early stage, privately held company focused on building technology to help enterprises manage, orchestrate and integrate containers across data centers. Many of our customers are starting to use containers […]

June 28, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco to Expand Cloud Security Portfolio with Acquisition of CloudLock

1 min read

I’m excited to share that today Cisco announced its intent to acquire CloudLock Inc., a leading cloud security solution that gives companies visibility and policy control over content shared in cloud applications. CloudLock specializes in Cloud Access Security Broker, or CASB, technology and helps organizations move faster to the cloud. CloudLock delivers cloud security to […]

April 15, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Completes Acquisition of CliQr

1 min read

I’m excited to announce that we’ve completed our acquisition of CliQr Technologies Inc., a privately-held company that provides a cloud platform to model, deploy and manage applications across hybrid IT environments made-up of data centers, private and public clouds. CliQr’s technology is very complementary with our data center strategy. CliQr will extend Cisco’s Application Centric […]

March 8, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Acquisition of Synata

1 min read

Today, I’m excited to announce the acquisition of Synata. Synata is a privately-held company based in San Francisco that will enhance how customers can search rooms and content within Cisco Spark, our business collaboration service. Cisco Spark is built on the Cisco Collaboration cloud and enables customers to message, meet, or call anyone, anywhere, and […]

March 2, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Leaba Semiconductor

1 min read

Today, I am pleased to announce Cisco’s intent to acquire Leaba Semiconductor, a venture-backed fabless semiconductor company based in Israel. Leaba is a team with a strong and successful track record of designing leading edge networking semiconductors that provide innovative solutions to address significant infrastructure challenges. This acquisition advances our innovation strategy, supports continued differentiation […]

February 3, 2016

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco’s Intent to Acquire Jasper is All About Making IoT Simple, Scalable and Interoperable

2 min read

Today, Cisco announced its intent to acquire Jasper, a company that delivers a cloud-based IoT service platform for millions of connected devices. With Jasper, enterprises can simplify and automate the management of IoT services across a wide range of connected products such as cars, printers, vending machines and many others.   I’m incredibly excited about […]

November 20, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Acano

2 min read

We are at an inflection point in video adoption. In the enterprise alone, less than 10 percent of the conference rooms in the world are connected via video and only 1 percent of users have video systems on their desktop today. The market is poised for dramatic growth, with IP video expected to represent 80 […]

October 28, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire 1 Mainstream; Helping Customers Deliver Outstanding TV Experiences to Any Device

2 min read

In today’s rapidly evolving market, the lines continue to blur between PayTV, such as premium subscription content, and over-the-top (OTT) streaming video service offerings. Service providers, content providers, media companies and broadcasters are all launching services of their own. OTT is fast becoming the new normal, where open, cloud-based technologies allow innovation at a rate […]

October 27, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Acquisition of Lancope to Boost Cisco’s Cybersecurity Threat Defense Capabilities

1 min read

As enterprises digitize their businesses and 50 billion devices come online over the next five years, cyber attackers are perpetually trying to stay one step ahead of these trends and becoming more adept at exploiting security weaknesses and avoiding detection. To help customers address these nascent risks, Cisco is focused on delivering solutions across the […]

October 26, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire ParStream

1 min read

As the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) becomes a reality, it’s estimated that 50 billion devices and objects will be connected to the Internet by 2020. With this massive number of new connections, valuable data will be created at an even faster pace than most companies can manage. That’s why we are pleased to announce […]

September 30, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco to Expand Security Consultancy Services with Acquisition of Portcullis

1 min read

There’s no question that cybersecurity is top-of-mind for Fortune 500 companies. This, compounded by a significant global security talent shortage, contributes to the burgeoning need for security companies to deliver...