Team,
Today, I’m thrilled to share some exciting news about our Executive Leadership Team (ELT). Fran Katsoudas and Liz Centoni are taking on additional responsibilities with expanded roles and Maria Martinez is named as our new Chief Operating Officer (COO). As always, we are constantly looking at how we can evolve our organization for greater impact, simplicity and speed, and I am confident that these changes achieve just that.
Fran Katsoudas Named Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer
When I became CEO, one of my stated goals was simple – for Cisco to be the greatest place to work in the world. To have achieved that honor once, let alone twice, is astonishing. Fran and her team have played a huge part in this as they are constantly innovating and bringing creative solutions to put our people-first strategy at the center of all we do. Fran always sets ambitious goals and finds ways to meet them and I want to thank her for this.
We all know that the work we do is more meaningful when it’s linked to purpose – giving us the confidence that what we do every day is making a difference. I’m excited to share that Fran’s new organization will be renamed to People, Policy & Purpose – doing even more to infuse our purpose into all that we do. This is key to delivering the best experience for our people, enriching the communities around us, and building a stronger business for our customers and partners. We can all be proud of the impact we’ve made in our communities over the past 30 years, and under Fran’s compassionate and bold leadership, we’ve only accelerated these efforts.
To continue to maximize our impact, Michael Timmeny and the Global Government Affairs and CDA team will move into Fran’s organization. The policies set by the countries and governments around the world in which we operate have meaningful impact on our people, our communities and our business and they’ve become more intricately embedded in our overall business strategy.
Michael and his amazing team have built strong relationships across all levels of government. Under his leadership, Cisco is known as a highly trusted partner to governments around world. I will continue to work closely with Michael as he is a critical advisor to me. He and his team are the best in the business and I look forward to seeing all they will accomplish as part of this new team.
Liz Centoni Named Chief Strategy Officer and GM, Applications
A year ago, I asked Liz to take on a new role as our leader of Emerging Technologies and Incubation to anticipate, invest in and incubate new technologies that we can scale and take to market. Shortly thereafter, I also asked her to lead our corporate strategy efforts to help develop and lead our strategy for the future as she is one of the most strategic thinkers I’ve worked alongside.
As we developed our three-year strategy that we shared with all of you in January, it became clear to me how important it is to have our emerging technologies and incubation work tied to our strategy to best anticipate the needs of our customers years ahead. An important part of this strategy is delivering optimized application experiences for our customers as we know that applications are now the lifeline for so many businesses.
I’m excited to share that Liz will lead our full-stack observability efforts, which will include and be aligned to our AppDynamics business. Liz has a strong track record in identifying key innovation, driving scale and translating that into revenue growth. The AppDynamics team, led by Linda Tong, is developing innovation that is truly game-changing. I believe bringing AppDynamics together with our full-stack observability strategy under Liz’s leadership will allow us to provide even greater value to our customers in the future.
Jeetu Patel will continue to lead our Security and Collaboration businesses – both high growth markets for us. During his time at Cisco, he has shown a deep ability to drive differentiation in these two intensely competitive markets. Going forward, he will be hyper focused on increasing our velocity of innovation in these areas to ensure our success. I want to thank Jeetu and his team for all the incredible work they are doing.
Maria Martinez Named Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Please join me in congratulating Maria as our new COO. In December, we announced that Maria would be leading the majority of our Operations team in addition to Customer Experience (CX). Since then, she has swiftly aligned this new team to accelerate our business transformation and drive maximum impact.
I am incredibly proud of the progress that we’ve made and Maria, along with CX and Operations, has been instrumental in our success. As we look to the future, we must build on this strong foundation, understand where we need to go and the steps we must take to get there. Maria has a clear vision for what success looks like and has proven her ability to work across multiple functions to transform and do what is best for Cisco. With her deep software expertise and commitment to excellence, I am confident in her ability to continue to accelerate our transformation efforts.
As our COO, Maria is responsible for the company’s operations and transformation, as well as building high-value experiences for our customers, partners, and employees. This will serve as the anchor for our future success as we bring greater innovation to customers to meet their future needs. Maria has already hit the ground running, as her team has begun the work on cross-functional strategic execution and developing a company-level plan and roadmap. I am excited to see all that she will help drive in this critical role for us.
Confidence in What’s Ahead
Please join me in congratulating Fran, Liz and Maria on their new roles. All three of these leaders consistently make bold moves, build amazing teams and are simply fearless in their approach to all that they do.
As we continue to execute against our strategy and drive greater innovation for our customers, it’s critical that we continue to support our people and communities, increase our cross-company collaboration and operationalize our strategy and execution efforts. When we come together as one team with a common purpose and a mindset rooted in growth, conviction and ambition, there is nothing we can’t achieve.
Thank you to all of you for your continued focus and determination. We have a unique opportunity in this moment to shape the future for Cisco, deliver even more to our customers and partners, and continue to make a positive impact in the world around us.
Chuck