The results are in, and the bar has never been higher. The Customer Success Theater at Cisco Live 2026 Americas was the perfect stage to celebrate the organizations pushing the boundaries of what IT can achieve, and the energy at the awards ceremony reflected exactly that. Today, we are proud to announce the winners of the Cisco Customer Achievement Awards: AMER 2026. 

This year’s honorees represent the very best of what bold, outcomes-driven technology leadership looks like in practice. From strategically deploying AI at scale and building the high-performance infrastructure to power it, to modernizing workplaces that seamlessly protect and connect people from any location, these organizations have turned ambitious vision into measurable, real-world impact. They are the teams securing digital environments against today’s most sophisticated threats, ensuring network reliability and application performance without compromise, and leading the charge toward a more sustainable, energy-efficient future. Cisco services played a significant role throughout this year’s awards, woven into many of the extraordinary outcomes these winners achieved , from initial design and deployment through to ongoing optimization and long-term success. 

What makes this year’s winners truly stand out is the scale of what they have accomplished and the real people and organizations behind every result. These are not just technology projects, they are transformations that have changed how businesses operate, how employees work, and how communities are served. In every category, the work speaks for itself. 

To every winner and finalist: congratulations. Your achievements are an inspiration to this community and a testament to what becomes possible when vision meets execution. We are proud to be part of your journey.  

 

AI Visionaries

McCain Foods was honored with the AI Infrastructure Innovator Award! To modernize high-volume manufacturing, McCain Foods integrated Cisco’s AI-ready data center solutions and advanced GPU compute to power an intelligent Digital Twin, enabling real-time, automated process control that significantly maximizes production throughput and reduces energy usage. 

Congratulations to the finalists:   

• CVS Health 
• Five9 
• Palm Beach County 

 

For their trailblazing efforts, Amazon was recognized with the Applied AI Pioneer Award! Facing the complexity of hyper-distributed AI workloads, Amazon implemented Cisco’s AI-ready infrastructure to streamline operations, achieving scalable automation infrastructure to streamline operations and enhance customer experience.   

Congratulations to the finalist, Las Vegas Metro Police Department. 

 

 

Future-Proofed Workplaces 

NYC Health + Hospitals received the Workplace Innovator Award! Transforming hybrid work environments, NYC Health + Hospitals leveragedCisco collaboration technologies to enhance employee engagement and secure remote access. 

Congratulations to the finalists:   

• Orange County Information Technology Department 
• Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services

 

Yale University was named the Modernized Infrastructure Maestro Award winner! Yale University transformed its legacy network infrastructure with Cisco solutions, enabling scalable, secure, and resilient connectivity across a complex academic and research environment. The modernization enhanced performance, strengthened cybersecurity, and positioned the University to support future innovation in teaching, learning, and research. 

 

 

Digital Resilience

Kimberly-Clark Corporation took home the Cybersecurity Defender Award! Kimberly Clark utilized Cisco security solutions to create an “Agentic SOC” to achieve unprecedented levels of automation and security, ensuring both cyber resilience and operational excellence. 

Congratulations to the finalists:   

• Louisiana State University 
• San Juan Regional Medical Center

 

United Airlines, Inc. took home the Assurance Avenger Award! Navigating complex global network demands, United Airlines employed Cisco assurance solutions to move from reactive to proactive management of the digital experience, achieve seamless connectivity across Cisco solutions, and optimized network and application performance.  

Congratulations to our finalist, NYC Health + Hospitals.   

 

TIAA took home the Observability Visionary Award! Jayashankar Rudrachar at TIAA transformed a fragmented observability landscape by implementing a unified OpenTelemetry framework. This created a single source of truth and enabled an AI Observability solution that is now accelerating their Enterprise AI adoption. 

Congratulations to the finalists:   

• Indiana Office of Technology 
• Autodesk, Inc. 

 

 

Sustainability Changemaker

The Sustainability Changemaker Award was presented to Banco do Brasil S.A.! Tasked with modernizing a legacy, hardware-centric data center to improve agility while upholding its commitment to global environmental leadership, Banco do Brasil leveraged Cisco ACI and energy-efficient Nexus hardware to achieve a 40% reduction in network energy consumption while significantly enhancing transaction processing speed and security. 

 

CX Customer Hero of the Year

Of the two individuals to win awards, Scott Gibbons, GlobalFoundries, was recognized with the prestigious CX Customer Hero of the Year Award! Scott partnered with Cisco Services to build GlobalFoundries’ foundation of digital resilience leveraging Cisco IQ. By automating the identification of end-of-support devices, they shifted from reactive troubleshooting to proactive lifecycle management, enabling a phased, precision-based modernization strategy that significantly enhanced stability and efficiency. 

Congratulations to the finalists:   

• Jeff Lutz, NYC Health + Hospitals 
• Patricia Voight, Webster Bank 

 

 

Cisco Insider of the Year

To close out the awards, Jeremy Shupick, Wyoming Machinery Company, was celebrated as the Cisco Insider of the Year! Jeremy is an invaluable member of the Cisco Insider program who bridges the gap between Cisco innovation and operational reality by providing actionable, real-world feedback across the Cisco Insider program and has been a critical partner in the evolution of the Cisco Insider program this year.

Congratulations to the finalists:   

• Tim Roberts, Fleetworthy
• Gustavo Leon Delgado, Emerson 

 

 

To all of our winners and finalists: thank you. Thank you for your partnership, trust, and relentless commitment to turning bold vision into real-world results. Whether you were securing digital environments, modernizing workplaces, scaling AI infrastructure, or pioneering a more sustainable future, your work has set a new standard for what is possible, and this community is better for it. 

As we celebrate these remarkable achievements, we are looking forward to what is next. The Cisco Customer Achievement Awards will return at Cisco Live 2026 Melbourne, where we will come together to recognize the next wave of innovation and excellence in the APJC region! 

 

Here is to the innovators, the defenders, the changemakers, and the visionaries. The best is still ahead.