Akshay Bhargava is Vice President of Product Management for Cisco’s AI Software and Platform group, where he leads the development of AI Canvas, AI Defense, and AI Studio—driving AI-powered solutions that help enterprises build, secure, and scale their AI initiatives. A product strategist at heart with deep technical roots, Akshay brings more than two decades of experience building AI-native products and scaling enterprise software platforms across observability, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure. Before joining Cisco, Akshay was Group Vice President of Product Management at New Relic, where he oversaw the company’s observability and AI product portfolio, ecosystem strategy, and monetization. Prior to that, he served as Chief Product Officer and General Manager at 1Password, where he expanded the product portfolio into developer-focused solutions, established new revenue lines, and helped secure the largest fundraise in Canadian technology history. Earlier in his career, Akshay held senior leadership roles at Malwarebytes, Oracle Cloud, FireEye, and Rainfinity, and began his professional journey as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in the Technology practice—experiences that shaped his ability to connect customer needs, product vision, and business outcomes at scale. Akshay has been recognized with the BIG Innovation Award and was named a Top 25 Software Product Executive. He is also an active advisor and investor in private companies across fintech, travel, subscription management, data security, and compliance. Akshay holds an MBA from MIT Sloan and a BS in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.