Cisco has recently announced a new CFO, but are more changes on the way?
When Maria and Gerri joined Cisco, both said they were here for three years and that time is almost up.
Any thoughts on likely replacements? Internal or external candidates?
15 replies (most recent on top)
Lots of people are hoping Maria goes soon.
There is not a single ELT member delivering results to grow the business in new directions. Robbins benefited from a Trump economy, funds repatriation, less regulations, etc and still could not deliver on the software transition defined five + years ago. Then there is the CX ineffective transition that Robbins is responsible for with result that there are few CX leaders or product management worth keeping. Cisco is squandering the greatest asset of the Industrial Age, the services revenue coming in each quarter during good and bad times.
Anyone can cut jobs. Only a special type of psychopath has the ability to continuously cut jobs while preaching that Cisco is a great place to work.
@rrg+17YwVTcb It wasn't necessary to pay someone millions to cut costs - anyone can do that. This was the reason I left Cisco, it was a race to the bottom - layoffs were the only tool in the armoury.
Next Gen Leadership?
Nope. Here, we have:
Next Gin Leadership.
These people are making Millions. They are firmly attached at the CSCO teet and going no where unless pushed.
What is the racetrack? I guessing some lifecycle marketing slide or something?
To be fair, Maria didn’t invent the famous racetrack.
Maria is really bad. Even replacing her with a turnip would be an improvement as it would do less harm.
Chuck’s weird obsession with having a harem at the top is itself a problem.
Gerri doesn't threaten Chuck. An outsider without any skills or accomplishments will ensure job security for Chuck.
Gerri has not done anything significant to drive the sales forward. The specialist model is broken and possibly copying what other cloud providers are doing. They are not spending $$ on getting good account SE's and TSA's by promoting the sales specialist model which is utterly rubbish. Gerri has to go and I think her replacement has been started by creating a new software sales SVP role under her.
https://newsroom.cisco.com/execbio-detail?articleId=1964989
The problem with all these leaders are (1) Not technical enough to understand customer problems and articulate Cisco value to their business (2) Not being bold to drive engineering, sales and technical leaders to deliver the outcome for customes... these all are number junkies
Unless Cisco start churning all the FAT Non-Technical ELT members and have people with technical background to make some sense and drive the company forward, Cisco will struggle. I am not sure that evening bringing Chambers or MPLS back will resuce this situation either.... This has to be driven from Top and Chuck should hold every exec accountable for growth. Dont spend the money, Either show growth or go home.... I am not in Cisco anymore but If I was given power from Chuck - I will clear half the useless lot within first 3 months and re-start the core innovation... Time to wait and enjoy in the meantime......
She was able to dramatically cut costs. You are looking at it from an employee perspective. Thousands of jobs eliminated in CX during her reign.
Millions in savings.
What a complete waste of space Maria is. She accomplished nothing but destroying CA. Just tragic.
Listening to the CX accomplishments for partner summit and other events was just comical, and the "racetrack". Good gawd.
Replacing the top is not enough. The entire pot-bellied middle is psychologically not tuned to a growing organization. They are glorified project managers with H1B's under them with no creative contribution 'cause they are afraid to challenge their "masters". There has to be a cultural change that these managers are not used to. The best thing they do is offload to Managed Services model, meaning, their role is reduced to just vendor management. The slave owners like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, etc. in turn crack the whip on H1B's and humor these Managers to get the contract. You don't get much creativity in a plantation culture. Next-Gen leadership needs to flush and drain the swamp. That's a big task probably possible only if done by breaking or decentralization.
All ELT sign 3 year contracts. Rumor is Maria is not staying.