Cisco’s long-standing belief has always been that companies need to evolve to drive forward and lead through market transitions. The same is true for our executive talent. Evolving our talent requires putting them in new roles, expanding their perspective and skill sets and bringing fresh ideas and energy to the business. This is what we’ve recently done with Edzard Overbeek’s new move from SVP of our Asia-Pacific-Japan region to head of our global Services business and Bruce Klein’s move from SVP of Public Sector Sales to the head of our Worldwide Partner Organization.
Over the past year, we have refocused our engineering organization for agility, better decision making, and a renewed focus on innovation. The market share numbers speak for themselves and our customer confidence has never been stronger. We have a strong leadership team and the business group leaders have demonstrated strong execution. Now the time is right for us to drive the next phase of our organizational evolution.
With that, we are pleased to announce Padmasree Warrior will expand her role to become Cisco’s Chief Technology and Strategy Officer where she will be responsible for identifying customer and industry transitions and determining Cisco’s strategy to address them. Padma will work closely with Cisco’s engineering, field, operations and services leadership, and will define strategy, investments, acquisitions and the evolution of Cisco’s technology partner ecosystem. Additionally, Padma will be responsible for thought leadership around Cisco’s products and architectures, technical talent development and recruiting, and she will increase her time with external stakeholders. The business group CTO’s will report dotted line to Padma to enable strong alignment between technology strategy, business strategy and M&A activity. Over the past four years, Padma has established a tremendous track record of results, such as building Cisco’s strategy and execution around architectures, cloud, overall technology strategy framework, and attracting and developing industry leading technical talent. We look forward to accelerating our market position under Padma’s strategic direction.
After 13 years of exceptional service to Cisco, Ned Hooper will be leaving the immediate Cisco family to form an independent investment partnership company and to pursue his goal to be a principal investor. Ned has been working on his plan with us over a number of months, and we look forward to partnering with him in his new endeavor. Ned has a unique passion and skill for investment and strategy, and will focus on this in the next phase of his career. Ned pioneered the model for large-scale M&A at Cisco and drove significant transactions for the company such as Tandberg, WebEx, Airespace, Starent and NDS. Additionally, he has managed our $2B investment portfolio with both strategic and financial returns to the company. Ned’s strategy and business development team will now report to Padma. We would like to thank Ned for his contributions, leadership, friendship and his continual drive to always do the right thing for Cisco.
Finally, Pankaj Patel will assume the leadership of Cisco’s engineering organization. Pankaj will drive innovation, operational excellence and agile development across our products, solutions and architectures, and continue to increase our relevance with our expanding customer base. Pankaj’s deep customer relationships and extensive engineering expertise, combined with his ability to mentor and grow top engineering talent will serve Cisco well as we drive the next phase of engineering leadership for the company. While you may be familiar with Pankaj’s service provider experience, he previously spent 16 years in the enterprise space. Over the past 13 years, Pankaj developed and grew Cisco’s service provider business which today accounts for approximately 35% of Cisco’s direct product revenue. Pankaj’s leadership in key service provider areas such as core routing, edge routing, SP mobility and SP video has positioned Cisco extremely well for the future. Throughout his tenure Pankaj has delivered a significant number of products to the Cisco portfolio, addressing a wide range of customer needs. Over the past year as the co-leader of engineering, Pankaj has increased his involvement in Cisco’s enterprise business, as the intersection points between service provider and enterprise come closer together.
As we stay focused on being the best Cisco for our customers, partners, investors and employees today, we never lose track of where we want to go in the future. We are excited about this evolution in our organization. Please join us in congratulating Padma, Pankaj and Ned on the next phase of their respective journeys.
Today, Cisco is kicking off its “Your Way” campaign which is focused on the universally desired but sophisticated requirements around the delivery of mobile experiences. Not just mobile access – that is simply changing an access type – but rather a mobile experience that maps to your needs depending on the device you’re holding, the service or application you’re using, the time and location you want it — in sum, it’s a mobile experience “your way.”
You’ll see Cisco highlighting this in a variety of forums – from an opening webcast featuring Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior and BT to an array of on-going activities such as a dedicated website advertisements and even in future innovation announcements like the major one we’ll be having on June 5th (you can register here to be among the first to hear the news.And when we do, you’ll see that we promote that such personalized, superior mobile experiences “don’t have to compromise the way of business.”
While that phrasing may make sense for the Bring Your Own Device trend in the Enterprise where many CIOs are concerned about security and compliance, how does it apply to Service Providers?
Last week’s Partner Summit brought together thousands of Cisco partners, both onsite and virtually. We hope you had as much fun as we did!
John Chambers, our Chairman and CEO, also had a great experience at the summit and took time out to chat with the Channels blog team about his overall strategy and experience at the event. He shared his observations about the summit’s key takeaways for partners, including Cisco’s emphasis on being a partner-centric company, a clear vision of where the market is headed and a roadmap for execution, and a commitment to continuing to listen to partners.
“We are committed to our partners,” he said. “As a company that does 80 percent of business through our partners, that will not change.”
At Cisco, partners are part of our extended team, part of our company’s DNA, so we’d like to recognize the winners of our Partner Awards that Cisco executives announced during the Partner Summit Global Awards Reception last week. We’d also like to recognize the winners of our Quote Contest. Congratulations to all of our partners!
Day Three of Partner Summit kicked off to a bouncing beat: Following a thumping performance by C2C, a group of world champion music DJs, SVP Edison Peres took to the stage to congratulate yesterday’s Olympic trip winners and kick off the day’s theme of Innovation.
He then introduced Padmasree Warrior, CTO and Cisco’s co-leader of Engineering, who opened her presentation with a bold statement: “We are on the verge of the most change this industry has seen in several decades.” She then explained how emerging global economies combined with technology advances are resulting in changing business models, and that the intelligent network is at the heart of innovation.
One such innovation is Cloud Connect, a new software platform the company will soon launch for enhancing cloud deployments, increasing cloud security, and simplifying cloud-based operations. Plus, customers can leverage the software to build applications customized for their own requirements.
But what does all this mean for partners? Why more opportunities, of course. To view Padma’s complete presentation, including a demo of iPad authenticating via Cisco ISE to Cisco Quad, check out the replay on Virtual Partner Summit.
Also check out this video--we spoke with partners today to hear from them what it’s like to be a Cisco partner and what’s standing out for them at this year’s Partner Summit.
And don’t miss today’s other big announcements, including Jabber for Everyone, recaps of several of today’s Business Transformation breakout sessions, how to win an iPad, and more! Read More »
Finally! Partner Summit is just around the corner. The Cisco team is excited to see you in person, beginning on April 16 in sunny San Diego, California.
If you’re not going to be in San Diego, you can still attend virtually. Just tune in via Virtual Partner Summit (VPS), beginning on April 17. All you need to do is register.
So what are the big topics at Partner Summit? Cloud and Collaboration are definitely top of mind. There’ll also be some fantastic breakout sessions. Some of them include “The Virtualized Workspace—New Solutions and Programs” and “Get in the Driver’s Seat with Smart Services.” The smart services session is just one of Partner Summit’s business transformation sessions. Others feature Cisco’s evolving Partner Program portfolio and how to accelerate mid-market success.
You’ll hear keynotes and have the opportunity to participate in live chat with top executives and regional leaders such as John Chambers, Padmasree Warrior, Edison Peres, and Jim Sherriff, to name a few. You can also join your regional theater breakouts covering topics for all the geographies.
Watch the video from our Roving Reporter to get all the details you need.
Keep reading to find out more about our Partner Summit Ambassadors, our new Roving Reporter, how to win an iPad or snag a t-shirt, the must-have checklist to help you navigate the event, and more. Read More »
