Gena Pirtle

Gena Pirtle is a 20-year veteran at Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), the Silicon Valley-based worldwide leader in IT. During her tenure, she has been responsible for building strategic public/private partnerships across Cisco’s ecosystem, which have created skills-to-jobs pathways and helped develop world-class tech talent for the digital economy. She has played a key role in implementing creative employment initiatives like “Dream Team” and “Talent Bridge” for the company’s award-winning early-in-career IT education program, Cisco Networking Academy, which has trained over 9 million students across the globe since it began in 1997.

In 2017, Gena expanded her role within Corporate Affairs to include implementing a military veteran training and employment strategy which leverages Cisco’s veteran employee volunteer network, a portfolio of best-in-class IT and cyber training offerings, and Cisco’s vast partner ecosystem to increase access to transitioning military and veteran talent. She currently oversees the roll-out of CyberVetsUSA, a consortium of tech companies (including Cisco, AWS, Palo Alto Networks, NetApp, (ISC)2, NDG and Fortinet) which provides free cyber training and industry certifications to veterans and military spouses to further their path to meaningful employment while addressing the growing shortage of cyber talent. In November 2018, she oversaw the launch of “Talent Bridge for Veterans,” a job-matching platform available to Cisco Channel Partners providing direct access to qualified veteran tech talent based on location, skills, and certifications.

Gena serves on the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) Cybersecurity Advisory Board and the Stafford County School District CTE Advisory Committee. She lives in the Washington DC-metro area where she and her family support various veteran and animal welfare charities.