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Surinder Brar

Chief Strategist, WWPO

Surinder Brar

Chief Strategist

WW Partner Organization

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Surinder Brar is the Chief Strategist of the Worldwide Partner Organization at Cisco Systems. He is responsible for understanding the impact of market transitions on partners and evolving Cisco’s Go-to-Market strategy. This includes analyzing the impact of cloud on partner business models. He is regarded as the internal expert on Go-To-Market partner strategies, programs, and policies.

Brar was the architect of Cisco’s unique value-based channel strategy that was called “brilliant” by Steve Burke, CRN News Editor, when launched in 2001 and is today used as a case study at several business schools. It has been published as “From Volume to Value” in UC Berkeley’s California Management Review (Fall 2009). This strategy impacts 69,000 partners who deliver 80% of Cisco’s over $42 billion in revenues; and is today regarded as a competitive advantage for the company.

Brar was a ember of Cisco’s Worldwide Channel Board when it was recognized as the best team in the industry by VAR Business in 2004. For ten years, he was responsible for the creation, development, implementation, governance, and operational management of Cisco’s worldwide partner programs and policies. This included channel certifications, specializations, and profitability initiatives; across resale, outsourcing, and managed services offerings. During this time, he was also responsible for all OEM and STI contracts; and for managing Big Bet partner investments across the world.

Prior to Cisco, Brar was Vice President of Marketing at Xpede Inc., a venture-capital funded Application Service Provider (ASP) offering web-based loan processing solutions to major financial institutions. He has thirty years of strategy, channels, marketing, and operations experience, and has held senior management positions at both private and publicly held companies. His international experience covers all partner types, market segments, and Theaters around the world.

Brar holds a MBA in Marketing from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He has also attended the Executive Leadership Program at Stanford University.