A Success Story: My Journey to Cisco’s Customer Experience Team

One of the greatest things about working at Cisco is that you are encouraged to be true to yourself. If you are even relatively new to reading the stories on the Life at Cisco blog, you have likely already bumped into one or two of the stories that speak to this. I love this benefit, but also – I think it is equally important that Cisco understands and embraces that we are individual humans with unique strengths, passions, and – yes – even lives outside of our working hours.

This may not sound monumental – but, I believe it is in that it enables each employee to bring their full selves to work. We don’t have to “hide” that we have a passion for cooking or a particular sport, and most of all, Cisco recognizes our families as part of their family. It’s not rare to hear co-workers catching up on life moments that include our significant others, children (both of human-kind and fur-kind), and beyond.

I think it is this aspect of our culture, and our dedication to work-life balance, that has helped me most in blending my personal successes alongside my professional successes. I never have to “choose” between the two.

My journey has been seven years in the making and has brought me from my native Hungary to Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States. To get to here and now, a series of personal challenges and successes along with professional growth and opportunities, lead me to my current focus of customer success.

My role at Cisco is as a Product Manager for our Customer Experience team where I provide our internal teams the right capabilities to help our customers succeed in reaching their goals. It’s very exciting to be able to build these from the ground up – and all to help our customers make their visions a reality with Cisco services/products! Our focus is truly on the customer – because we all share the understanding that their success is our success too.

Now, how have I blended my personal and professional successes? I’m glad you asked!

1. One Company, Many Careers: While pursuing my Master’s degree, I lived in Belgium. In 2012, I received the opportunity to join Cisco, and promptly moved to Amsterdam to work with our service supply chain tools.  I had no idea that I’d still be with the company 7 years later and counting!

After enjoying all that my career and life in Amsterdam had to offer, I found the right opportunity to make a switch and hightailed it to the United States. One of the greatest things about working for Cisco is that you can have MANY careers all in the same company as we encourage career growth! Have a dream to work in a different location or country? They support that as well!

2. My New Home: Raleigh, North Carolina: Not only did I start a new life, but I also got to work in interesting areas that would form my skills and experience when it came to building elegant, customer-focused tools. It was an exciting time in my career, but also my personal life.

Here I also met my lovely wife, Alexandra, who is originally from Puerto Rico! Who would have thought two people from Hungary and Puerto Rico would get the opportunity to meet someone from the other side of the world and get married? We never did! It was an unlikely journey that brought us together, but one that I am incredibly grateful for. Meeting my wife also brought our amazing dog, Harley, into my life who we obsess over and who is also a wonderful co-worker and advisor on days I work remotely.

3. A New Horizon: Cisco’s Customer Experience Team: Every personal and professional step in my journey has brought me to here and now where my success is now part of Cisco’s customer success. I’m proud to be a part of Cisco’s intense focus on our customer’s needs via our Customer Experience (CX) organization – and specifically of our drive to build a best-in-class Customer Success function within Cisco. The momentum and energy I see every day is infectious – and is unlike anything I’ve seen in my career up until now.

My journey hasn’t always been easy, but I can honestly say that I’m happy to have joined and stayed with Cisco as I have felt challenged, been given the opportunity to grow, and been encouraged to blend both my professional life with my personal life. Through the support of Cisco, and with lots of determination and encouragement from family, friends and colleagues – I’ve come this far.

With the opportunities at Cisco, I would challenge anyone to take the first step in joining us and seeing where their journey takes them.

 

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