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Rowan Trollope

Senior Vice President and General Manager

IoT and Collaboration Technology Group

Rowan Trollope is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco’s Internet of Things (IoT) and Collaboration Technology Group. Trollope joined Cisco in 2012 to lead a dramatic leap forward in the way people connect and collaborate at work. Since then, he has reinvented Cisco’s collaboration business and made design, simplicity, and exponential improvement the guiding principles of product development. Most recently, Trollope was appointed to also lead Cisco’s IoT efforts as the company focuses on helping its customers and partners create value in a highly connected, digital world. In this role, he leads a worldwide organization responsible for technology solutions across IoT market segments, including manufacturing, industrial, transportation, public sector, and many others.

Under Trollope’s leadership, the Collaboration Technology Group has refreshed the entire collaboration technology portfolio, simplifying the product line and winning eight Red Dot awards for outstanding product design. To capitalize on mobile and cloud opportunities, Trollope also built a next-generation cloud platform and its first application, the business messaging service Cisco Spark. As a result, Collaboration has taken a huge step forward to lead Cisco’s large businesses in growth, at 14 percent in its most recent quarter.

Prior to joining Cisco, Trollope led Symantec’s sales, marketing, and product development teams as the Group President, responsible for its cloud security business and the SMB segment. He was responsible for growing the company’s software-as-a-service strategy and expanding cloud-based delivery and customer support models. Prior to that, Trollope led product development and marketing for the Norton consumer business and previously Symantec’s high-end Enterprise Security division.

Trollope holds a variety of patents in computer security and operating systems.

Rowan Trollope can also be followed on Cisco's The Network.

Articles

March 25, 2016

COLLABORATION

Interoperability is Table Stakes

1 min read

I have never shied away from talking about Cisco’s commitment to interoperability, and here we are in 2016 and we are still talking about it? Haven’t we learned anything from the mobile phone industry? I don’t ever hear Samsung and Apple talk about how their phones can call one another. That’s table stakes. No one […]

Cisco and Jasper – Accelerating Enterprise IoT Success Worldwide

3 min read

Today, Cisco announced the close of our acquisition of Jasper, a leading IoT service platform provider that powers the IoT initiatives of more than 3,500 enterprises worldwide. With Jasper’s cloud-based platform, companies of all sizes – and in any industry – can rapidly and cost-effectively launch, manage and monetize IoT services on a global scale. […]

March 8, 2016

COLLABORATION

Cisco Acquires Synata to Solve a Tricky Problem: How Do You Search What You Can’t See?

2 min read

I recently bought a new home and even before I’d signed the papers I was mentally making a punch-list of things I wanted to change and improve. The Cisco Spark team loves punch lists, too. From the beginning, two things have been at the top of our list: world-class security and incredible search. Just like […]

February 8, 2016

COLLABORATION

Machine Intelligence In The Workplace: The Next Big Thing

3 min read

It isn’t every day that I publicly disagree with a man who won the Turing Award and was on a first-name basis with Albert Einstein. But today I respectfully will. On January 24, an incredible man named Marvin Minsky died. He was one of the fathers of computer science in general and artificial intelligence in […]

February 4, 2016

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

From Connected Devices to Smart Services: The Real Value of IoT

2 min read

If you follow me on Twitter (@rowantrollope) you might have followed along this past Christmas as, home with the family, I started writing some code and building some hardware devices to connect more of the things around my house. After all, these days anything can be a smart device; from a toaster that delivers perfectly […]

January 29, 2016

COLLABORATION

Acano Joins Cisco: It’s Official

2 min read

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when I could write that headline and post this news: We have completed the acquisition of Acano. Today, two winning teams with a common vision for the future of work become one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCiK8OwMzc Here are the top three things we’ll be delivering together: #1 Users Will Get More Choice […]

December 8, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Hollywood Got Collaboration Right

2 min read

If you’ve ever tried to dial in to a conference call from the school’s carpool lane after dropping off your kids and ended up with the other parents honking at you while you tried to join, you won’t recognize Hollywood’s version of collaboration. On TV shows, no one is ever searching for a conference dial-in […]

November 18, 2015

COLLABORATION

Video in 2016: Saving Holiday Plans, Bettering Business

3 min read

This is the time of year for crystal-ball gazing when everyone starts talking about what the new year might bring. It’s no secret that I’m passionate about video. I can pinpoint when this passion was sparked: November 2012. It was my first month at Cisco. Excited to dig in and meet my far-flung new team, […]

November 16, 2015

COLLABORATION

A Brief History of Cloud Collaboration

3 min read

This is part of a blog series on the evolution of the Cisco Collaboration Cloud platform, which explores the technical and design principles behind its unique architecture. I came to Cisco with the idea that, in many ways, enterprise communications technology had fallen behind consumer technology. And that we could apply to enterprise communications much […]

October 21, 2015

COLLABORATION

Cloud Reimagined

1 min read

As we gear up for our biggest collaboration event of the year, Collaboration Summit, I thought it would be a great opportunity to kick off a blog series leading up to the announcements we’ll be making there this December about the evolution of our Collaboration Cloud Platform. At last year’s summit, we announced Project Squared, […]

August 26, 2015

COLLABORATION

What Future Do You See?

2 min read

The future fascinates me. I grew up reading Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Kurt Vonnegut. And watching every sci-fi movie that came out. Robots, aliens, utopia, dystopia – I loved it all. Today, imagining what the future looks like is a big part of my job. In June, I got to participate in a futurist […]

July 9, 2015

COLLABORATION

Cisco Collaboration at Tech on Deck

1 min read

This week I had a great opportunity to participate in the first ever Tech on Deck with Robert Scoble and Scott Jordan. Tech on Deck is being broadcast from SCOTTeVEST’s headquarters in Ketchum, Idaho, which happens to be a mile away from Sun Valley where the annual Allen & Co. Conference is taking place. This […]

June 23, 2015

COLLABORATION

How Cisco Scored a Spot on TWiST

1 min read

If you don’t know about the podcast series, This Week in Startups (TWiST), hosted by my friend Jason Calacanis, it’s worth checking out. Jason is a legendary investor and media mogul who has his fingers in every part of the tech industry. Each week, he brings CEOs, business founders, venture capitalists, angel investors, and tech […]

March 31, 2015

COLLABORATION

Mastering Design, One Red Dot at a Time

2 min read

One of my favorite designers, John Maeda, believes that the most successful tech companies of the future will really be design companies. When John’s somewhat bold prediction is put in the context of this quote from Steve Jobs, “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works” – […]

March 17, 2015

COLLABORATION

Spark a Revolution

2 min read

Today’s companies must evolve or face extinction. If they stand still, they’ll die. Pretty dramatic, I know, but that’s the reality. Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies will no longer be around in 10 years[1]. Companies in every industry know they need to move faster and innovate quickly to survive. But transforming traditional businesses into […]

February 24, 2015

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Jimmy Kimmel Live Reimagines the Fan Experience with Cisco

2 min read

When I watched the Grammy’s last month, I wasn’t only rooting for my favorite artists from my couch – I had Twitter open, engaging with my friends, following interesting hash-tags, and engaging in the event in a way that five years ago wasn’t even an option. Industry people call this the 2nd screen and it’s […]

December 8, 2014

COLLABORATION

Privacy v. Productivity: The CIOs Role in Shaping Future of Work Policies

2 min read

According to Cisco’s 2014 Connected World Technology Report, the future of work will be more flexible and collaborative than ever before. In this two-part blog series, Rowan Trollope, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco’s Collaboration Technology Group, explores how the IT and business landscape is changing based on this new research and how […]

November 17, 2014

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

How I Manage a $4B Business from my Phone

2 min read

I don’t use my laptop to run my business. It’s not that I don’t like my laptop. It’s just that I really love using my mobile device — for everything. My mobile is incredibly convenient, small, and functional. Let’s face it: we’re lucky to be in the era of the smartphone when one device can […]

November 5, 2014

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

The Future of Work & Collaboration

3 min read

According to Cisco’s Connected World Technology Report, the future of work will be more flexible and collaborative than ever before. In this two-part blog series, Rowan Trollope, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco’s Collaboration Technology Group, explores how the IT and business landscape is changing based on this new research and how organizations […]

October 6, 2014

COLLABORATION

Reinventing Conferencing

2 min read

What kind of a world will you live in three years from now? How about five? Will your personal robot pour you a drink after your self-driving car delivers you home? That’s where we’re headed, and it’s a pretty quick trip: self-driving cars are already on public roads and you’ll soon be able to buy […]

February 18, 2013

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

What Really Matters in Collaboration

On the eve of Microsoft’s first Lync User Conference, I think it’s a great time to start a frank and direct conversation about what’s changed in collaboration and, because of those changes, what’s really important for IT decision makers to consider as they evaluate collaboration vendors and solutions. This conversation, which I’m confident will spark […]