UNC-Chapel Hill graduate Chuck Robbins unveiled early Thursday the “next generation” management team he wants when he takes over as Cisco CEO next month. And it’s his team, not Chairman John Chambers, with many familiar faces disappearing.
The group of 10 doesn’t include Chief Technology Officer Padmasree Warrior and other familiar Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) names. Two presidents were announced as leaving on Monday.
The team does include a new chief of staff who is a graduate of UNC-Charlotte.
Robbins, chosen as the next CEO in May, has promised a hands-on, faster, flatter approach in running Cisco when he takes over officially on July 25. And he now has a new team he describes as “remarkable.”
In a blog, he described the team quite clearly as his:
” …. my next generation executive leadership team who will lead Cisco into the digital age.”
Big changes
“The opportunity Cisco has to lead our customers into the digital age is incredible. The momentum we have in our business is undeniable. Our strategy is working, and with the leadership team I’m announcing today, I’m extremely confident we will move even faster, innovate like never before, and pull away from the competition,” he said in the announcement.
“This is a remarkable team, with a diverse set of experiences, expertise and backgrounds to accelerate our innovation and execution, simplify how we do business, drive operational rigor in all we do, and inspire our amazing employees to be the best that they can be.”
Here are some of the headlines about Robbins’ moves:
- Cisco Loses Three Executives as New CEO Sets Team – Wall Street Journal
- Cisco’s New CEO Names His Leadership Team – Re/code
- Cisco announces new CEO’s executive team, more departures – Network World
- Cisco’s New CEO Robbins Names Deputies for Post-Chambers Era – Bloomberg
- Cisco Reveals ‘Next Generation’ Leadership Team; Warrior, Overbeek To Depart- CRN
As Bloomberg notes, Robbins is cutting the size of the top management core to 10 people from 12 under Chambers, who gives up the CEO role as of July 25.
Plus, women make up half the team.
Minus Warrior, a well-known executive who is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s annual Tech Venture Conference in Raleigh this fall.
Also out is Edzard Overbeek, who had been senior vice president of services.
Overbeek was a contender for the CEO job which Robbins won in a contest supervised by the Cisco board.
Hilton Romanski, the head of acquisitions for Cisco, replaces Warrior as CTO.
“With these changes, Padmasree Warrior, Cisco Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, and Edzard Overbeek, Senior Vice President of Services, will move into strategic advisor roles, effective immediately and stay through the transition,” Cisco said.
“Wim Elfrink, Cisco Executive Vice President for Industry Solutions and Chief Globalisation Officer, opened Cisco’s second global headquarters in Bangalore, India, and helped define our vision for the next wave of the Internet – the Internet of Everything – will retire from Cisco effective July 25.”
The Robbins 10
Here are Robbins’ team as profiled by Cisco:
- Pankaj Patel, Executive Vice President, Chief Development Officer
Everything we do begins with innovation. Pankaj will continue to lead Cisco’s 25,000 development engineers and the company’s $36 billion technology portfolio. In the past two years, he refocused engineering operations on high-growth opportunities such as cloud, mobility, data center, security, collaboration, software and the Internet of Everything and transformed engineering to accelerate innovation and drive efficiency into Cisco’s core engineering functions.
- Kelly Kramer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Promoted to Cisco CFO in early 2015, Kelly joined Cisco three years ago after spending 20 years at GE working across numerous divisions and countries around the world. She has driven a disciplined focus on Cisco’s financial model, and delivered on our commitments to our shareholders. She has quickly established herself as a business leader capable of partnering across and influencing the entire organization.
- Rebecca Jacoby, Senior Vice President, Operations
Recognized by Forbes as a ‘superstar CIO,’ Rebecca’s leadership as Cisco’s Chief Information Technology Officer and strong track record of operational excellence, innovative problem solving and talent development have elevated the role of IT at Cisco. In her expanded role, she will oversee the global supply chain, global business services, security and trust, and IT.
{Plus]:Guillermo Diaz, Cisco senior vice president of IT, has been promoted to CIO reporting directly to Rebecca. He has been accountable for the company’s enterprise IT architecture, technology strategy, and IT services model.
- Francine Katsoudas, Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer
The architect of Cisco’s people strategy since 2014, Fran has brought tremendous energy and innovation to revitalizing Cisco’s approach to strategic workforce planning, emphasizing the skills and capabilities that employees need to be innovative in today’s technology-driven environment. She was previously the HR leader and business partner to the Cisco engineering leadership team.
- Hilton Romanski, Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer
Hilton joins the Cisco executive leadership team from his previous role as head of Cisco’s mergers and acquisitions strategy and Cisco’s $2 billion private investment portfolio. He has 20 years of experience investing in and acquiring private and public companies around the world and has been responsible for over $20 billion in acquisitions in 40 deals, including Meraki, Sourcefire and Airespace.
- Karen Walker, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
Karen steps into the role of chief marketing officer from her position overseeing Cisco’s go-to-market organization. In this capacity she led integrated global marketing strategy and the integration of in-country execution of brand campaigns. She brings more than 20 years experience in global IT marketing roles to the position. She joined Cisco from Hewlett-Packard in 2009.
- Chris Dedicoat, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales
· Chris joined Cisco in 1995 and has served as Senior Vice President of EMEAR for the past four years where he has led the region to solid growth in a very challenging market. Chris has demonstrated a keen understanding of technology and market opportunities, an ability to drive transformation, execution and an unparalleled ability to lead and motivate teams.
- Joe Cozzolino, Senior Vice President, Services
Joe is stepping in to lead Cisco’s services organization after spending the past two years leading Cisco’s service provider mobility and video infrastructure businesses. He joined Cisco from Motorola in 2013 and brings more than 25 years of experience in engineering, general management, sales, and services leadership positions to his new role.
- Mark Chandler, Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Recognized by industry publications such as The National Law Journal and American Lawyer as one of the most influential and innovative lawyers in the profession, Mark brings 19 years of experience leading Cisco’s legal, employee relations, ethics, investigations and brand protection experts to his new role as a member of the Cisco executive leadership team.
- Dr. Ruba Borno, Vice President, Growth Initiatives and Chief of Staff
Ruba joins Cisco from her role as Principal and leader in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications, and People & Organization practice groups at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s leading advisors on business strategy. She is a distinguished electrical engineer with a Ph.D. and M.Sc. from the University of Michigan, and was an Intel Ph.D. Fellow at the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated MicroSystems. For the past seven years, Ruba has specialized in advising technology executives on corporate growth and transformation strategies.
Cisco employs several thousand people at its campus in RTP, one of the global tech giant’s largest outposts.
