Aruna Ravichandran

Aruna Ravichandran is a change agent and recognized authority on ‘the future of work’, with a track-record of guiding customers, partners, and global teams through workforce and technology transformations. Aruna brings a unique parallel expertise in technology and marketing, where the office of the CMO is a ‘growth partner’, not a marketing cost-center. She marries her computer engineering background, with a maniacal customer focus, and a business-outcome philosophy that is based on equal parts: purposeful storytelling and data science. Bridging the roles of the CMO, CIO, and CXO, Aruna believes in the power of marketing as a revenue creator, a brand value accelerator, and enabler of human connection. She is an outspoken proponent of leading with a people-first approach, to shepherd business leaders towards a more innovative, culture-conscious, and inclusive way of doing business. As an industry expert on SaaS marketing and enterprise technology, Aruna has a track record that spans more than two decades – building SaaS and digital routes-to-market and expanding the service addressable market – for companies including HP, Juniper, CA Technologies, and Cisco. In her current leadership post as the Vice-President and CMO for Cisco Webex, Aruna oversees marketing for the $6 billion organization, as a growth engine for the company. Aruna has authored two pioneering books on DevOps, is a contributor for Forbes.com, and serves on multiple corporate boards. She is a multi-award honoree, including: Top 100 Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley 2016, and the National Diversity Council’s 2016 Most Powerful and Influential Woman. Aruna holds an MBA and MS Computer Engineering from Santa Clara University and a BS Computer Science from Bangalore Institute of Technology (BIT). She was also a graduate of the esteemed CMO Leadership program at Kellogg Business School in 2019.