Cisco Systems Org chart
This Cisco Systems org chart highlights the company’s organizational structure and leadership team, including key executives such as Charles H. Robbins (Chairman & CEO) , Chris Dedicoat (Advisor, Office of the Chairman & CEO) , and Carrie Palin (Chief Marketing Officer) . It provides a clear overview of the leadership team’s roles and how they work together to achieve organizational goals and ensure effective management across all functions.
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Cisco Systems Leadership Team
Executives
Profile Summary
Charles H. Robbins
Chairman & CEO
Chuck Robbins is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cisco. He assumed the role of CEO on July 26, 2015 and was elected Chairman of the Board on December 11, 2017. As Chairman and CEO, Chuck is focused on helping companies, cities and countries around the world as they look to Cisco to connect everything and everyone by building the highly secure, intelligent platform for digital business. Over his 20 years at Cisco, he has served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations, where he led the Worldwide Sales and Partner Organizations, and helped drive and execute many of the company's investment areas and strategy shifts; Senior Vice President of The Americas, Cisco's largest geographic region; Senior Vice President of U.S. Enterprise, Commercial and Canada; Senior Vice President of U.S. Commercial Sales; and Segment Vice President, U.S. and Canada channel organization, where he was instrumental in helping build the industry's most powerful partner program. Prior to joining Cisco, Chuck held management positions at Bay Networks and Ascend Communications. Chuck is on the Board of Directors for BlackRock; Chairman of the US-Japan Business Council; a Member of the International Business Council for the World Economic Forum; on the Board of Directors for the Business Roundtable where he serves as Chairman of the Immigration Committee; a Board of Trustees member for the Ford Foundation; and a member of the International Council for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Chuck holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a computer science concentration from the University of North Carolina.
Chris Dedicoat
Advisor, Office of the Chairman & CEO
Chris Dedicoat has a diverse work experience spanning across multiple companies. Chris is currently serving as a Non Executive Director at Purple since 2022. Prior to that, they were the Chairman of the Board at PacketFabric starting from 2020. From 2018, Chris held the position of Executive Director at RStor. Chris had a long tenure at Cisco, starting in 1995. At Cisco, Chris held various roles including EVP, Worldwide Sales & Field Operations, President, EMEAR, SVP, European Markets, VP, EMEAR Sales, VP, UK and Ireland, and Director, UK & Ireland. Chris Dedicoat completed their Executive MBA from Hult Ashridge in 1992-1993. Prior to that, they pursued their Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications from Birmingham City University in the years 1975-1978.
Carrie Palin
Chief Marketing Officer
Carrie Palin serves as the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Cisco, where responsibilities include strengthening the brand and boosting demand for the company's solutions. In addition to this role, Carrie holds a position on the Board of Directors at NetApp and has previously served on the Board of Directors for EDB. Carrie has an extensive background in marketing leadership, having held several senior roles including SVP & CMO at Splunk, SendGrid, and Box, as well as Vice President of Cloud Data Services & Analytics Software at IBM. With 16 years at Dell Technologies in various global marketing positions, Carrie led significant initiatives such as the Global Server Solutions Product Marketing organization and the Global Demand Generation for Dell's enterprise portfolio. Carrie earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications from Texas Christian University.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Justin Barney
Chief Revenue Officer, Thousandeyes (part Of Cisco)
Justin Barney is a seasoned executive with extensive experience in technology sales and management. Currently serving as Chief Revenue Officer for Cisco ThousandEyes since January 2020, Justin has also held key roles at Cisco, including Vice President of Global Enterprise Networking and Software Sales and Managing Director of Global Enterprise Routing and SD-WAN Sales. Prior to Cisco, Justin was the Chief Revenue Officer at Pulse Secure and President, COO & CEO at ScaleArc, which was acquired by Ignite Technologies in 2018. Additional experience includes leadership positions at Clearstone Venture Partners, Juniper Networks, Ankeena Networks, 3Leaf Systems, Citrix Systems, and NetScaler. Justin's career began at Chase Capital Partners, and educational qualifications include dual MBA degrees from The Wharton School and a Bachelor of Science in Finance and International Business from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Clearstone Venture Partners
Pulse Secure
Ben Dawson
SVP and President, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China
Ben Dawson is SVP and President, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China at Cisco Systems.
Jeetu Patel
President & Chief Product Officer
He has more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in enterprise software, building cloud-native applications while developing and delivering against long-term strategies. He previously served as the Chief Product Officer and Chief Strategy Officer at Box, leading the company’s product strategy and vision for cloud content management in the enterprise. In his role as the Chief Strategy Officer and SVP of Platform at Box, he directed the creation of the Box Platform business unit. Prior to his time at Box, his roles included general manager and chief executive of the Syncplicity business unit of EMC and president of Doculabs, a research and advisory firm focused on collaboration and content management. He currently serves on the board of HackerRank, a technology hiring platform for assessing developer skills, and Jones Lang LaSalle, a professional services firm specializing in real estate and investment management.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Oliver Tuszik
President of Europe, Middle East and Africa
Oliver Tuszik is the Senior Vice President of Cisco's Global Partner Organization. He has responsibility for managing and supporting 60,000+ global partners who represent the company's primary route to market. Cisco's Global Partner Organization encompasses value-added resellers, distributors, system integrators, independent software vendors and technology partners. This globally connected ecosystem accounts for more than 80 percent of Cisco's revenue and is a unique differentiator in helping deliver business outcomes for customers. Tuszik and his leadership team are responsible for developing strategic initiatives and program innovations. With new solutions and services based on complementary technologies from Cisco and its partners, they will create alignment, profitable growth and capacity for Cisco and its partners. Tuszik and his team will continue simplifying the tools, processes, programs and offers that help partners be successful. Tuszik previously led Cisco's sales in Germany where he was the Country Leader. He and his team drove five years of successive growth, achieved double digit growth twice, and earned the honor of Theater of the Year for the past two years. Under his leadership, Cisco Germany became a worldwide role model for Cisco's Country Digitization Acceleration activities. Prior to joining Cisco in 2013, Tuszik was the CEO of Computacenter in Germany, one of Cisco's largest partners. He led the consulting business, managed partner strategy and spent two years running Computacenter's networking & security business. Tuszik also spent many years in international leadership roles for GE Capital IT Solutions and CompuNet. Tuszik is a member of the Präsidium of BITKOM e.V. and has been active in different initiatives with German government on a state and federal level. He is also a frequent speaker at conferences and senior executive events. Tuszik holds an Electronic Engineering degree and a Master of Science degree in Telecommunications and Computer Networks from the RWTH Aachen University in Germany. He and his wife have three children and will be relocating from Germany to San Jose, CA.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Computacenter
Nick Small
President, Cisco Capital
Nick Small is President, Cisco Capital at Cisco Systems.
Dave West
SVP & President, Asia Pacific, Japan & Greater China
Dave West is SVP & President, Asia Pacific, Japan & Greater China at Cisco Systems.
Ranvir Wadera
SVP, Engineering, AI Software and Platform
Ranvir Wadera is SVP, Engineering, AI Software and Platform at Cisco Systems.
Ammar Maraqa
SVP and Chief Strategy Officer
Ammar Maraqa is SVP and Chief Strategy Officer at Cisco Systems.
Eric Knipp
SVP and GM, CX Americas
Eric Knipp is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Customer Experience (CX) Americas division, managing the most extensive region for CX, generating more than $8.9 billion in yearly revenue. His leadership encompasses 17 countries across 6 sectors, including the U.S. Public Sector, Global Enterprise Segment, U.S. Service Provider, U.S. Commercial, Canada, and Latin America. The organization comprises professional and support services, architecture, delivery, and customer success teams who, in collaboration with partners, provide business solutions across the customer lifecycle, enhancing the speed of achieving value and returns from their technology investments. Previously, Eric served as Vice President of Solutions Engineering for Cisco’s Global Specialists organization where he led the Engineering community as well as the alignment and interlock between Global Specialists and Cisco’s Business Entity leaders, X-Architecture efforts, and Global Competitive team. Before that role, Eric was Vice President of Systems Engineering in the Americas—the largest systems engineering team within Cisco—working closely with Sales leadership to develop Cisco’s technology go-to-market and ensure customer and partner satisfaction. In that role, he also partnered with Cisco’s Customer Experience (CX) organization to bring innovative solutions and offers to market. Throughout his 21-year tenure with Cisco, Eric has held numerous positions focused on engineering and architectural development. Beyond his core mission, he is passionate about evolving the networking industry and his Cisco teams through innovation by unlocking the value of programmability and integrating the network into the modern application development and DevOps frameworks. Before joining Cisco, Eric held several industry roles with companies such as AT&T and Nortel, where he focused on providing advanced architectural guidance to senior IT leadership in the areas of network architecture, global telephony design, and security. Eric earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Indiana University and holds a Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) certification. He has served as a contributing author to multiple publications focused on network design, security, and unified communications, and has been formally recognized as a distinguished speaker at numerous events including Cisco Live. Eric resides in Raleigh, North Carolina with his family and enjoys many activities such as hunting, skiing, weightlifting, biking, and martial arts.
Peter Bailey
SVP/GM, Security
Peter Bailey is the SVP and GM of Cisco’s Security business, where he leads efforts to accelerate the growth of our Security business by driving operational excellence in product strategy and go-to-market execution. With over 25 years of experience in cybersecurity, SaaS, and enterprise software, Peter specializes in operationalizing enterprise software product strategies and executing go-to-market strategies at scale. He has a proven track record of building high-performing teams, instilling a strong sense of mission, and delivering exceptional customer outcomes. Prior to Cisco, Peter served as VP/GM of the Security Operations (SecOps) business at Google Cloud, a rapidly expanding cybersecurity division supporting large enterprises and government entities. He joined Google Cloud in 2022 following the Mandiant acquisition, where he previously held the position of EVP and COO. His tenure at Mandiant began in 2019, which included its prior parent company, FireEye. Before joining FireEye, Peter held various operational leadership roles, including CEO of Vertical Communications, a telecom software and services provider, from 2011 to 2019. Throughout his career as an operator and leader, a consistent theme has been his ability to build high-performing teams, instill a strong sense of mission, and drive exceptional customer outcomes. He has a particular expertise in helping organizations operationalize enterprise software product strategies and execute go-to-market strategies at scale. Peter holds a Bachelor of Arts in English / Literature from Princeton University.
Chuck Graham
SVP & Chief Supply Chain Officer
Chuck Graham serves as Cisco’s Chief Supply Chain Officer, overseeing a global supply chain ecosystem that enables profitable growth and delivers an unrivaled customer experience. His organization directs new product introduction, product lifecycle management, sourcing and supplier management, planning, manufacturing, quality, logistics and services. With a focus on driving operational excellence, fostering resilience, and enabling Cisco’s strategic priorities, Chuck ensures that supply chain plays a pivotal role in delivering value to customers and advancing the company’s leadership in the technology industry. Chuck brings a wealth of experience to Cisco, having held leadership roles across supply chain, operations, and customer-focused organizations. A former Cisco customer himself, Chuck offers a unique perspective on how supply chain strategy can drive competitive differentiation and innovation in a rapidly evolving business environment. Prior to Cisco, Chuck served for seven years as Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Cloud Sourcing and Supply Chain, delivering servers, storage and networking hardware and service contracts to datacenters globally to power Microsoft Cloud. He also served in multiple leadership roles at Dell including Supply Chain Planning, Channel Enablement and Procurement. Chuck holds a reputation as a collaborative and visionary leader, dedicated to supporting teams and developing talent, inspiring innovation, and tackling the most complex challenges with purpose and agility.
Liz Centoni
EVP & Chief Customer Officer
Liz is Senior Vice President of Cisco Emerging Technologies and Incubation. She leads the team that incubates new business opportunities, and drives teams working on breakthrough, emerging solutions. Liz's team identifies and incubates projects outside of the core and creates new markets and businesses for Cisco. This team is also responsible for progressing Cisco's important work with Standards bodies and will help form and manage new research partnerships with leading-edge Universities. Prior to this role, Liz was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Cloud, Compute, and IoT business where she drove the business and engineering strategy and solutions across these portfolios. Liz also spent two years as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Computing Systems Product Group, accelerating the success of Cisco's flagship Unified Computing Systems (UCS) and HyperFlex product families. Prior roles include: Vice President of Engineering Strategy and Portfolio Planning, as well as key roles within engineering leadership teams, where she was responsible for shaping, guiding and helping to manage Cisco's engineering strategy and execution. She has also served as Vice President and General Manager of the Service Provider Access Group where she led strategy, marketing direction and engineering efforts to grow Cisco's portfolio of Carrier Ethernet Access solutions. Since joining Cisco in 2000, Liz has a strong track record in various engineering roles where she was instrumental in bringing to market industry-leading products and managing global teams. Mentorship, talent development and leadership are also an important priority for Liz and she is an active mentor and sponsor of underrepresented groups. She is the Cisco Global Executive Sponsor for the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program. Liz is a proud recipient of the YWCA 2015 TWIN award and Million Women Mentors 2015 Mentor of the Year award. Liz serves on the Board of Directors for Ingersoll Rand Inc. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for The Tech Interactive. Liz holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Mumbai and a M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco.
Mark Patterson
Evp, Chief Strategy Officer
Mark Patterson, SVP, is the Chief of Staff to the Office of the Chairman and CEO. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, Mark leads business planning and operations across the company, in support of Cisco's own digital transformation and that of our customers and partners. On behalf of the CEO, Mark drives alignment across Cisco executives and their functions through forums focused on strategy, innovation and leadership. He leads the incubation and execution of critical company sponsored cross-functional initiatives, as well as strategic partnership and advisory guidance to the CEO agenda. Previously, Mark held the role of SVP, Global Strategy, Planning, and Operations, where his mission was simplification to drive growth, transformation, and culture, with a focus on customers and our sales force. He led the evolution of our sales and go to market model. His role focused on our transformation to deliver recurring revenue, strategic direction for digital selling, implementation for go-to-market initiatives, and the long-range strategic business plan. Mark also led sales operations, inclusive of sales and partner training, sales compensation, customer listening, Cisco's customer experience centers around the globe, and Cisco's cloud based demo platform, "dCloud". Since joining Cisco in 2000, Mark has held a number of functional leadership roles across the company ranging from finance, sales strategy, planning, and operations, working with each of Cisco's primary customer segments spanning enterprise, commercial, public sector, and service provider. He led the original formation of the Americas region, bringing together multiple theatres, countries, and market segments, while building and implementing a plan to increase productivity by 17 percent. He was instrumental in the integration of the product and services sales forces. He has served in several executive sponsorship roles for customers and countries, as well as championing multiple diversity efforts. Prior to joining Cisco, Mark led finance and overall business operations for IPMobile. IPMobile was previously named "One of the Hottest Start-Ups in America" by America's Network Magazine and was later acquired by Cisco. Earlier in his career, Mark focused on serving high-tech and telecommunications clients as manager at a large-scale public accounting firm. Mark holds a bachelor's of business administration degree in accounting from Baylor University in Texas.
Rodney Clark
SVP, Partnerships & Small & Medium Business
Rodney Clark is SVP, Partnerships & Small & Medium Business at Cisco Systems.
Jeremy Foster
SVP & General Manager, Cisco Compute
Jeremy Foster is SVP & General Manager, Cisco Compute at Cisco Systems.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
John Dorval
SVP, Americas Service Provider
John Dorval is SVP, Americas Service Provider at Cisco Systems.
Brian Tippens
SVP & Chief Social Impact & Inclusion Officer
Brian Tippens is an accomplished professional with extensive experience in leadership and social impact, currently serving as a Member of the Board of Directors for the UN Global Compact Network USA and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. As the Senior Vice President and Chief Social Impact Officer at Cisco, Brian leads initiatives that promote corporate responsibility. Additionally, Brian is the President and Executive Director of the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Foundation and holds the title of Chief Sustainability Officer and Vice President of Employee Experience at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Academic credentials include a Juris Doctorate from the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from the University of San Francisco.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Operation HOPE
Maria Poveromo
SVP & Chief Communications Officer
Maria Poveromo is an accomplished communications executive with extensive experience in leading communications strategies at major technology companies. Currently serving as the Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at Cisco, Maria has held various roles at Cisco, including Vice President of International Communications. Prior to their tenure at Cisco, Maria was Vice President of West Communications at IBM and held multiple positions at Adobe, including Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, as well as Senior Director of AR, PR, and Social Media. Additionally, Maria served as Director of Corporate Communications at Viewpoint, a Computer Associates Company. Maria Poveromo earned a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Wesleyan University, graduating in 1990.
Tim Carnes
SVP, Global Solutions Engineering
As Senior Vice President of Cisco Global Solutions Engineering (Global SE), Tim Carnes leads a team of over 6,000 engineers worldwide. This community of SEs builds the bridge between understanding customer needs and translating Cisco’s technology into innovative solutions that deliver business value. The team also rationalizes and prioritizes customer and partner insights to influence Cisco’s technology strategy. Tim brings deep industry experience to his role, combining strategic vision, technology expertise, and business acumen to lead and inspire cross-functional teams. He implements global initiatives that empower a culture of excellence through technical advisories and development programs that drive innovation across technology, sales, and leadership domains. Tim is also an executive sponsor for Cisco customers and partners. As a sponsor, he contributes a unique perspective on market dynamics, champions technology initiatives, and provides support and guidance to foster success for their strategies. Tim previously led the Americas Systems Engineering organization and the Engineering and Architecture teams for Cisco’s Global Service Provider organization. Prior to that, he held multiple leadership positions across diverse market segments within the company, including Commercial, Service Provider, Enterprise, Public Sector, and Partner Ecosystem. Tim also served in sales engineering roles at US Robotics and 3Com before joining Cisco. He began his career in advanced technologies as an engineer in the aerospace industry with General Electric Aerospace and Lockheed Martin. Tim holds a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University. He is a Boston native and currently lives in the area with his family.
Patrick Morrissey
SVP, Global Specialists
Patrick Morrissey is Senior Vice President of the Americas Service Provider organization, which encompasses major telco and mobile, cable and media, and web companies across the U.S., Canada and Latin America. Service Providers are at a critical crossroads where innovative services and network scale dictate the leaders within the highly competitive market. With a customer-centric approach, Patrick and his team enable customer transformation through major market disruption via tip-of-the-spear web scale networking, SP network transformation and enterprise digitization. Patrick joined Cisco in 2000 with the acquisition of ArrowPoint Communications. Since then, he built the nascent Web & Media business, creating a new vision and strategy for Cisco during a time of significant technology and business model disruption. He established a new co-development engagement model that enabled Cisco to evolve its mass scale networking strategy and gain a seat at the table with some of the world’s most influential customers. Prior to his current role, Patrick was the Vice President of Sales and Operations in the Global Service Provider theater, responsible for Verizon. His team’s efforts shifted the customer dialogue from vendor to strategic partner and were recognized by Verizon as the standard engagement model for all its other suppliers Patrick’s passion for inclusion and diversity as part of building and developing teams has led to leadership roles on several committees, including Cisco’s Americas Global Service Provider Inclusion and Diversity team. Patrick also serves as the executive sponsor for Cisco’s Early in Career Network, responsible for fostering the New England Community. Patrick holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree with a double major in management and marketing from Nichols College. He also possesses dual citizenship with the United States and Ireland (EU).
Eyal Dagan
EVP, Strategic Projects
Eyal Dagan is the SVP of the Common Hardware Group (CHG) responsible for delivering the silicon, hardware systems and optics for Cisco’s switching, routing, optical, cable access and IoT portfolios. He assumed this role in March 2020. Prior to that, he was the SVP of the Core ASIC Group (CAG) within CHG. Eyal came to Cisco in March 2016 via the Leaba Semiconductor acquisition. He was Leaba Co-founder and CEO. Prior to co-founding Leaba, he was a VP & GM at Broadcom (switching/routing DNX line). Prior to Broadcom, he was CEO & Co-Founder of Dune Networks, which was acquired by Broadcom in 2009. Eyal has more than 25 years of senior-level management and engineering experience in the semiconductor industry. In the 90s, he was VP R&D at MRV Communications, a private company that went public in that decade. At MRV, he led the engineering effort of Ethernet switching and Optical Transport. Eyal holds several patents in the area of computer architecture and networking. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Applied Science (BASc), summa cum laude in computer science and a master’s degree in Computer Science both from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Nick Michaelides
Senior Vice President, Americas Sales
Nick Michaelides is the Senior Vice President of the U.S. Public Sector Organization. He and his team are responsible for the development and deployment of technology solutions that enable the public sector to better protect our country, serve our communities, and educate our children. Nick’s deep understanding of his customers and their mission critical challenges have been the key to his success. He leads with a customer first mentality and his team consistently delivers results by ensuring that they build strong relationships and serve as a trusted advisor to their customers and partners. Prior to leading Cisco’s U.S. Public Sector business, Nick held several leadership roles within Cisco. Most recently he led U.S. Federal Sales at Cisco. Nick’s was responsible for the U.S. Federal market, including Defense, Civilian and National Security Operations. U.S. Federal is the second largest market in the Americas and one that Cisco has supported for over 25 years. Prior to Federal, he was Senior Director for Defense Operations, where he was responsible for delivering innovative solutions, products, and services to one of the largest employers in the world, the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Nick is a proven leader with 32 years of Federal and technology industry experience. He provides strategic vision and operational management to consistently achieve sales goals and develop his workforce. Nick led Cisco’s Transformational Leadership Initiative, and has a passion for mentorship. He completed Cisco’s Momentum Leadership Program that develops the next generation of Cisco executives. Nick holds an Active Top Secret SCI clearance. He enjoys spending time at the lake with his wife, Rita, and their three children.
Martin Lund
EVP, Common Hardware Group
Martin Lund is an accomplished executive with extensive experience in the technology and telecommunications sectors. As of March 2024, Martin serves as Executive Vice President at Cisco. Prior to this, Martin held the position of Corporate Vice President at Microsoft from July 2020 to July 2023, where responsibilities included overseeing Azure for Operators and managing P&L for multiple networks teams. Martin's leadership at Metaswitch Networks from August 2015 to July 2020 as Chief Executive Officer was marked by successful transformation and growth strategies for the company. Before that, roles at Cadence Design Systems, Broadcom, Intel Corporation, and BLT datacom have further established Martin’s reputation as a leader in electronic design, semiconductor solutions, network switching, and engineering management. Martin holds an Electronic and Communications Engineering degree from Risoe National Research Center and Copenhagen Technical College, complemented by executive education from IMD.
Guy Diedrich
SVP & Global Innovation Officer
Dr. Guy Diedrich is a Senior Vice President and the Global Innovation Officer for Cisco Systems where he is responsible for its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program. In this role, Dr. Diedrich collaborates closely with government and industry leadership in over 40 countries around the world to drive mass scale digitization initiatives that help increase GDP, create millions of next-generation jobs and develop sustainable innovation ecosystems. With over 1000 active or completed projects since CDA’s inception in 2015, Dr. Diedrich continues to grow and evolve the program into new markets, and build trust with government, industry and academic stakeholders. Prior to his current role at Cisco Systems, Dr. Diedrich was a Vice Chancellor at the Texas A&M University System where he was responsible for research, commercialization, federal government relations, state government relations and strategic initiatives. Before joining Texas A&M, Dr. Diedrich served as President and CEO of GRA Inc., a software development and consulting company that he co-founded and grew from a start-up to a firm employing more than 130 professionals. The company was sold to a publicly-traded technology company. Dr. Diedrich holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M University, a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge (Kings College) and a Ph.D. from Swansea University where he studied the economics of trust in organizations. Dr. Diedrich is a published author in cost accounting and medical psychology, and has worked extensively throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East for more than two decades.
Scott Herren
EVP & CFO
R. Scott Herren is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Cisco, managing the financial strategy, global finance organization, procurement, and mergers/ acquisitions and integrations for the company with total revenue for fiscal year 2020 of $49.3 billion and 77,500 employees. Herren is focused on accelerating Cisco’s shift towards a more software-based business model, maximizing long-term shareholder value, and maintaining the high level of integrity and transparency for which Cisco is known. Prior to joining Cisco in 2020, Herren spent over six years as CFO at Autodesk where he was responsible for global financial strategy including operations, corporate development, financial systems, tax and treasury as well as the company’s procurement organizations. Herren was instrumental in orchestrating Autodesk’s business-model transformation – shifting from selling perpetual licenses to selling subscriptions. Before Autodesk, he held senior level strategy and financial positions at Citrix Systems, FedEx and IBM. Herren is a member of the Georgia Tech Industrial and Systems Engineering Advisory Board. He holds a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance from Columbia University.
Francine Katsoudas
EVP & Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer
Francine Katsoudas is Executive Vice President and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer of Cisco. In this role, Fran oversees critical functions that instill Cisco’s conscious culture, contribute to the company’s overall performance, and advance Cisco’s purpose to Power an Inclusive Future For All. As head of the People, Policy & Purpose Organization, Fran leads an ecosystem comprised of People & Communities, Corporate Affairs, Workplace Resources, and Government Affairs & Country Digital Acceleration. This strategic alignment of functions and expertise ensures holistic care for the well-being of Cisco’s people, establishes Cisco as a trusted and valued partner to governments and global leaders, and extends Cisco’s reach to positively impact communities everywhere in alignment with the company purpose. A 25-year veteran of Cisco, Fran has extensive experience leading organizational transformations, driving large scale growth, cultivating successful leaders and teams, and constructing an employee-first culture. Prior to her current role, she served as HR business partner to the Engineering leadership team, and held positions in the Service Provider, HR Operations, Customer Service, Acquisition Integration and Services groups. Prior to Cisco, Fran worked in both the financial and professional services industries with a focus on customer service and operations. Fran currently serves on the Board of Directors for Americares, Global Citizen, and ADP. Passionate about social justice, Fran is an activist and advocate for a variety of causes close to her heart, particularly women’s leadership, homeless youth, and the Latino community. A graduate of the University of California Berkeley, Fran lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.
Dev Stahlkopf
EVP & Chief Legal Officer
As Microsoft's General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Dev leads a team of more than 600 legal professionals, including litigation, compliance and ethics, antitrust, corporate, intellectual property, HR legal, product and engineering legal, marketing, consumer sales, and legal operations teams. She is responsible for providing strategic legal counsel and advice to the company's business leaders on a broad range of legal and regulatory issues. Dev is skilled at building and leading teams at scale and is focused on organizational excellence, including effective strategies for attracting and retaining top legal talent, creating an agile and effective organizational structure with strategic alignment to the business, and driving a culture of collaboration and inclusion. Dev is a champion of innovation in legal services, including through digital transformation of the company’s internal legal practice, partnership with legal service providers to advance diversity in the legal profession, and innovative approaches to pro bono legal services.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Perkins Coie
Derek Idemoto
Svp, Corporate Development And Cisco Investments
Derek Idemoto serves as the SVP of Corporate Development and Cisco Investments at Cisco Systems, Inc. since December 2007, where responsibilities include driving external innovation through acquisitions and investments, overseeing over 100 deals totaling more than $20 billion. Prior experience includes roles as Managing Director of Venture Investment at ITOCHU Technology, Inc., and as a Strategic Consultant for Idemoto Group. Derek also held the position of Vice President of Corporate Development at Overture Services, Inc., where contributions led to its acquisition by Yahoo for $1.6 billion. Earlier roles included Venture Associate at Kline Hawkes and Senior Financial Analyst at both Cowen & Company and BancAmerica Securities. Educational qualifications include an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and a BS in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
Thimaya Subaiya
EVP, Operations
Thimaya Subaiya is SVP of Customer Experience Solutions, Marketing & Acceleration at Cisco. He leads a global team tasked with developing, delivering, and marketing the Customer Experience architecture and solutions that help customers accelerate business outcomes and enable our partners to expand that value to customers. Before joining Cisco, Subaiya was Chief Operating Officer, Customer Success at Salesforce. As COO, he was responsible for customer adoption and experience, product alignment, support, renewals, and P&L management and played a pivotal role in driving customer retention and growth. Previously, Subaiya was SVP, Global Marketing & Operations, where he drove market leadership, business planning & strategy, demand generation, strategic events and global growth across marketing. Subaiya has led innovation and go-to-market strategies for over 15 years in the enterprise software industry. Prior to joining Salesforce, Subaiya spent 7 years at Oracle, where he held leadership positions in Business Planning & Strategy and was responsible for global planning and strategy for the Oracle Direct division. He has also worked in business development at Global Information Solutions and as a director at Vishwagram Marketing. Subaiya holds an MBA from the ENPC School of International Management in Paris.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Lawrence Huang
SVP & GM, Network Platform & Wireless
Lawrence Huang is SVP & GM, Network Platform & Wireless at Cisco Systems.
Elisabeth De Dobbeleer
SVP, Cisco Partner Program
Elisabeth De Dobbeleer is SVP, Cisco Partner Program at Cisco Systems.
Masum Mir
SVP & GM, Cisco Provider Mobility
Masum Mir is SVP & GM, Cisco Provider Mobility at Cisco Systems.
Raj Chopra
SVP & Chief Product Officer, Security
Raj Chopra is SVP & Chief Product Officer, Security at Cisco Systems.
Christian Bigsby
SVP, Workplace Resources
Christian Bigsby is SVP, Workplace Resources at Cisco Systems.
Benny Mikkelsen
SVP & General Manager, Coherent Products & Components, ACACIA, Organization, Worldwide
Benny Mikkelsen is SVP & General Manager, Coherent Products & Components, ACACIA, Organization, Worldwide at Cisco Systems.
Anurag Dhingra
SVP & GM, Enterprise Connectivity & Collaboration
Anurag Dhingra is SVP & GM, Enterprise Connectivity & Collaboration at Cisco Systems.
Jacqueline Guichelaar
SVP & General Manager, Customer Experience, Asia Pacific, Japan & Greater China
Jacqueline Guichelaar is SVP & General Manager, Customer Experience, Asia Pacific, Japan & Greater China at Cisco Systems.
Pastora Valero
SVP, International Government Affairs
Pastora Valero is SVP, International Government Affairs at Cisco Systems.
Shannon McFarland
Global Vice President Of Developer Relations
Shannon McFarland serves as the Global Vice President of Developer Relations at Cisco, bringing over two decades of experience to the role. Shannon is recognized for expertise in building and leading development and engineering teams, with a focus on Cloud Native and Application Networking technologies. As a Distinguished Engineer, Shannon has contributed to the Cisco OpenStack Suite's architecture and developed significant Cisco solutions for cloud computing and SDN. Previous positions include Principal Engineer roles and a Corporate Consulting Engineer where Shannon facilitated communication between R&D and customer needs. Shannon co-founded the Denver OpenStack Meetup and served on the Board of the Open Infrastructure Foundation. Prior work experiences include roles at Accudata Systems and Columbia HCA Healthcare, specializing in network engineering and systems support.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
ACCUDATA SYSTEMS, INC
Gene Kim
Leader, Go-to-market Strategy
Gene Kim is a seasoned finance professional with extensive experience in leadership roles across various companies. Currently serving as Leader of Go-to-Market Strategy at Cisco since 2025, Gene has previously held senior vice president positions in finance at Isovalent and Yubico. Prior experience includes serving as CFO at Ease Inc. - Process Performance Solutions and vice president of finance and operations at SecureAuth Corporation. Gene began a career in finance as a senior financial analyst at Riverbed Technology and worked as a senior associate at Ernst & Young. Gene holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and a Master’s degree in Accounting from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Previous or Current Companies (Board, Advisor, Employer)
Yubico
Isovalent
Riverbed Technology
Ease
Secureauth
EY
