Chuck Robbins serves as the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Cisco, which has been connecting the world for the past 40 years. With its industry-leading portfolio of solutions, Cisco is now revolutionizing how infrastructure and data connect and protect organizations in the AI era. He was named CEO in July of 2015, before being elected Chair of the Board on December 11, 2017.

For over 25 years at Cisco, Robbins has demonstrated a keen understanding of the rapidly evolving business landscape and the critical role of technology in addressing both customer and global challenges. The company's recent strategic shift has seen a renewed emphasis on software and services, cloud-native applications, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, sustainability, and the advancement of networking – further solidifying Cisco's relevance in the digital era.

Robbins has championed initiatives across the company to enhance employee experience and culture, contributing to Cisco earning the top spot on World’s Best Workplaces, Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For, People’s Companies that Care, and various other lists throughout his tenure.

Prior to becoming CEO, Robbins led Cisco’s global sales organization. He also held various leadership roles in regional sales, as well as Cisco’s partner organization, where he was instrumental in building one of the industry’s most robust partner programs.

Outside of his work at Cisco, Robbins is the current Chair of the Business Roundtable; on the Board of Directors for BlackRock; Chairman Emeritus of the US-Japan Business Council; a Member of the International Business Council for the World Economic Forum; a Member of the American Heart Association’s CEO Roundtable; a member of the 2019 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and Vice Chair on the Corporate Fund Board for the Kennedy Center.

Beyond the boardroom, Robbins is also known for his passion for philanthropy and giving back, particularly in STEM, homelessness, and connecting the unconnected – all supporting his belief in the transformative power of technology. He also balances his professional responsibilities with a strong commitment to his personal life, whether spending quality time with his family, pursuing his love of the outdoors by fishing or golfing, or cheering on his Alma Mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a concentration in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2022. He also received an Honorary Doctorate from Georgia Tech University in December of 2023.

Fletcher Previn serves as Cisco's Chief Information Officer and is an executive sponsor for Cisco’s work with various US Government agencies. He and his team drive simplification and business transformation to empower Cisco's 140,000 employees to do their best work while determining the systems, infrastructure, and technical capabilities to create secure global IT at scale.

Fletcher has an established reputation for guiding large organizations through significant shifts. He has extensive experience in driving Agile transformation and modern ways of working, IT modernization, software development, and delivering productivity tools. A systems engineer by training, Fletcher holds Microsoft and Cisco certifications.

Prior to joining Cisco, Fletcher served as Global Chief Information Officer at IBM, where he led a global team of more than 12,000 IT professionals to provide a secure, global IT at scale for IBM employees worldwide.

Sam Rad is a lifelong student of humanity – futurist, anthropologist, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Radical Next, a meta-media studio creating transformative stories, experiences, and media productions that shape a positive future. Her upcoming book by the same name, Radical Next: Reclaiming Your Humanity in a Post-Human World explores how “radical next ideas” will transform societies in the decades to come. 

As an entrepreneur, Sam has founded 4 companies and served across multiple roles across the C-Suite. She holds several patents linking the physical and digital worlds and is considered a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, Immersive Realities, and Applied Cryptography systems. She was amongst the first anthropologists to conduct research living in a virtual world in 2009. 

Sam is passionate about empowering humanity to thrive in times of radical change. It is her mission to restore trust and connections between people and themselves, their beliefs, each other, all beings, and our planet. 

True to her “Rad” name, Sam is no stranger to risk and has accumulated hundreds of jumps as an ex-competitive skydiver.

Nina Schick is a globally recognized expert on AI, geopolitics, and power.

She has been at the forefront of how AI is reshaping global dominance—not just in business, but in military strategy, economic infrastructure, and state power.

She was among the first to predict the societal impact of AI-generated content (Deepfakes, 2020) and now leads the conversation on Industrial Intelligence—the idea that AI is not just a software revolution, but a physical, geopolitical, and industrial transformation.

A trusted advisor to world leaders, Nina has worked with the NATO’s Secretary General, and leading AI companies on strategy, regulation, and deployment.

She has advised President Joe Biden, helped shape EU policy for nearly a decade, and collaborates with frontier AI firms, including Synthesia and Truepic. 

Nina is a sought-after speaker at Davos, CES, WebSummit, CogX, TEDx, and regularly appears in MIT Tech Review, WIRED, TIME, and Bloomberg.

Half-Nepalese, half-German, she speaks seven languages and has worked across Europe, Asia, and North America.

Now based in the U.S., Nina is focused on how AI will reshape global power in the 21st century.

Paul Chapman is an award-winning CIO and Cisco Vice President within our Product Organization where he is focused on creating a new category of hybrid work solutions at the intersection of networking, security, and collaboration and modernizing everywhere people and technology work and serve customers.

Paul has a rich technology and business background spanning over three decades. His career has been marked by leadership in business strategy, transformation, and innovation within the global corporate landscape.

Before his tenure at Cisco, Paul held the position of Senior Vice President and Global Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Box, where he oversaw IT, cyber risk management, global compliance, and customer advocacy. Prior to Box, Paul occupied senior leadership roles at other prominent Silicon Valley companies including HP, VMware and Sun Microsystems. In these capacities, he spearheaded substantial enhancements in service delivery, applications development, data management, and cloud operations.

Paul is widely acknowledged as a thought leader and a sought-after speaker on various subjects, encompassing topics such as digital transformation, powering hybrid work, organizational change, and artificial intelligence (AI). His dedication to cultivating high-performing teams, fostering a culture grounded in customer-centric principles, and consistently delivering value through technology is a hallmark of his professional ethos.

Anurag Dhingra serves as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration Group. In this role, he manages a diverse portfolio encompassing industry-leading hardware, software, and SaaS products. From Meraki, Cisco Catalyst, and Industrial IoT networking, to ThousandEyes network assurance, to Cisco Collaboration, these products power the workplaces of the world's largest and most sophisticated organizations. 
 
In our digital and AI-first world, Anurag has been a pioneer in applying new technologies to build and deliver exceptional experiences for both customers and employees. He has been instrumental in shaping Cisco's AI strategy across its product offerings, and he has led his teams in delivering thousands of innovations to Future-Proof the Workplace. 
 
In his 20+ year tenure with Cisco, Anurag has held several leadership roles in the Collaboration business, including Chief Technology and Product Officer where he led the entire Collaboration software business. He was also Vice President and Head of Engineering for Webex Meetings where he was responsible for delivering applications and services to power online meetings for millions of users worldwide. 
 
With over decades of experience in the Communications, Collaboration, and SaaS industries, Anurag is accomplished at building high performance global teams and creating innovative, market leading products. Anurag takes pride in being a customer-focused leader, with a proven track record of strategic thinking and executing with a strong culture of innovation. 
 
Passionate about applying technology for good, Anurag serves on Cisco's Human Rights Advisory Council and started Cisco's Responsible AI initiative as founding executive sponsor. 
 
He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India.

Tom Gillis is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cisco Security, Data Center, Internet & Cloud Infrastructure Group. A respected industry leader with strong executive management skills and in-depth knowledge of the challenges surrounding secure integrated networking, Tom is responsible for leading the company's efforts to build secure infrastructure and extend it to the campus and branch. These efforts enable customers to reduce risks, streamline management, and adapt more effectively to modern threats. He previously led Cisco’s Security Business Group (SBG).

Prior to Cisco, Tom was the SVP/GM of the Network and Advanced Security Business Group at VMware, where he led the endpoint, networking, load balancing and network security businesses. He was also the CEO/co-founder of Bracket Computing which was acquired by VMware.

Before Bracket Computing, Tom was the GM of the Security Technology Group at Cisco where he led the company’s businesses for security management, appliances, applications, and endpoint services. Tom was also part of the founding team at IronPort Systems and served as senior vice president of marketing when the company was acquired by Cisco. Under his guidance, IronPort grew an average of 100 percent year-on-year for seven years. During his tenure, IronPort rose to become the leading provider of antispam, antivirus, and antimalware appliances for organizations ranging from small businesses to Global 2000.

Tom has also worked at iBEAM Broadcasting, Silicon Graphics, and Boston Consulting Group in various technical and leadership roles. He is also a noted advisor to startups and venture capital companies and is a member of several boards of directors.

Tom holds an M.B.A. degree from Harvard University, and graduated Magna Cum Laude with an M.S.E.E. degree from Northwestern University and a B.S.E.E. from Tufts University.

Kamal Hathi is the Senior Vice President and GM, for Splunk, a Cisco company. He is responsible for evolving Splunk’s market-leading unified security and observability platform and delivering broader digital resilience value with Cisco. Kamal is a highly experienced technology leader with a track record of envisioning, delivering, and scaling industry-transforming products, built on enduring technical architectures that delight customers. 

Prior to joining Cisco, Kamal served as Chief Technology Officer, at Docusign, where he led the company’s transformation from a single product company to a multiproduct, AI-first platform used by over one million business customers. As General Manager for the platform, he oversaw product strategy, including development, execution and delivery of products worldwide. Prior to Docusign, Kamal was Chief Technology and Product Officer, and board member, for Trader Interactive (acquired by Carsales). 

Kamal spent the majority of his career at Microsoft, where he was a founding member and General Manager for Microsoft’s multi-billion-dollar Data Analytics business, including SQL Server and Power BI. Kamal played a key role in the transformation of the Business Analytics industry from a traditional desktop/server model to self-service SaaS. 

Kamal serves on the board of Slickdeals.net. He holds an M.S. from Case Western Reserve University and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the M.S. University of Baroda. His education, research and early career were focused on the practical application of AI to industrial systems. 

As Executive Vice President and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer at Cisco, Francine Katsoudas brings together people and technology to drive positive impact for the company and global communities. Her work advances Cisco's Purpose to Power an Inclusive Future for All, and her leadership on critical policy and social issues has forged strategic public-private partnerships addressing some of the world's most pressing concerns. 

In her role at Cisco, Fran leads a global team spanning People & Communities, Sustainability, Social Impact & Inclusion, Government Affairs & Policy, Workplace Resources, and Cisco's Digital Impact Office - all on a mission to put Cisco's Purpose into practice while driving growth for Cisco's business, people, and communities. During her 29 years at the company, Fran has led large-scale organizational transformations, cultivated new generations of leaders, and stewarded Cisco's renowned employee-first conscious culture. 

Fran has supported underrepresented groups since her youth, and today focuses her advocacy on women's leadership, homeless youth, and narrowing the digital divide. Fran is also Cisco's executive country sponsor for Mexico, Poland, South Africa, and India. She has been recognized on the Forbes and Know Your Value 50 Over 50 list, honoring female leaders and entrepreneurs who are breaking new ground. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for ADP and for Global Citizen as Co-Chair. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Fran lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.

Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s President and Chief Product Officer. He combines a bold vision, steeped in product design and development expertise, operational rigor, and innate market understanding to create high growth businesses. He is relentlessly focused on building world class products that solve Cisco customers’ biggest problems – bringing the power of the Cisco portfolio together to connect and protect every aspect of their organization in the era of AI.

Previously he was Cisco’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration where he led the strategy and development for these businesses and held P&L responsibility for the multibillion-dollar portfolio. In this role, Jeetu led with his creative vision and intense focus on innovation and swift execution. Together with his team, he transformed and positioned our Security and Collaboration portfolios for success and growth. In both areas, he reinvigorated organic innovation, championed key inorganic investments, and drove simplification across these portfolios with a fanatical focus on design and user experience.

Prior to joining Cisco in 2020, Jeetu was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Box, a role he pioneered. He led the company’s product and platform strategy, setting the company’s long-term vision and roadmap for cloud content management in the enterprise. He transformed Box from a single product application to a multi-product platform used by 100K customers representing 69% of the Fortune 500. The discipline, quality standards, performance metrics, and stability Jeetu instilled fueled the platform’s growth – nearly quadrupling revenues to $700M+. Box’s growth scaled to reach over 60M users with over 50% of customers using multiple products. He also created the Box Platform business unit where he led product strategy, marketing and developer relations – driving products from incubation stage to mature offerings.

Before joining Box, Jeetu was General Manager and Chief Executive of EMC’s newly acquired Syncplicity business unit, a cloud service for Enterprise File Sync Sharing (EFSS) and collaboration. One of the first SaaS-based solutions offered by EMC, Jeetu spearheaded the company’s acquisition. He created a world class leadership team, secured some of the market’s largest customers and led the group to become one of the fastest growing EFSS companies in a highly competitive market. Other key roles at EMC included CMO for the Information Intelligence Group and Chief Strategy Officer, where he drove the organic and inorganic strategy for the division’s cloud and mobile growth. 

Previously, Jeetu was President of Doculabs, a research and advisory firm co-owned by Forrester Research. The firm focused on collaboration and content management across a range of industries including financial services, insurance, energy, manufacturing, and life sciences.

He currently serves on the boards of JLL, an American commercial real estate services company, and Equinix, the world’s digital infrastructure company™.

Jeetu holds a B.S. in Information Decision Sciences from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family.

As Chief Strategy Officer, Mark Patterson is responsible for driving Cisco’s overall strategic direction including acquisitions, investments, and emerging technology incubation efforts to create new markets and fuel growth for the company. Mark also leads the Office of the Chair and CEO, partnering with the Executive Leadership Team to accelerate innovation, alignment, and growth. His team is responsible for annual and long-range strategic business planning, strategic partnerships, developer relations, and critical cross-functional initiatives.

Previously, Mark held the role of SVP, Chief of Staff to the Chair & CEO, serving as a trusted advisor and driving alignment across Cisco functions through forums focused on strategy, innovation, and leadership. Prior to that, he served as SVP, Global Strategy, Planning and Operations, where he focused on our transformation to deliver recurring revenue, digital selling, and evolving Cisco’s go-to-market strategy. Mark also led sales operations, inclusive of sales and partner training, compensation, customer listening, and Cisco’s Customer Experience Centers around the globe. 

Throughout his 23-plus years at Cisco, 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. He was instrumental in the integration of the product and service sales forces. He has served in several executive sponsorship roles for customers and countries, as well as championing multiple diversity efforts.

Before joining Cisco in 2000, 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 telecommunication clients as manager at a top global public accounting firm. 

Mark holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration degree in accounting from Baylor University in Texas. He serves on the Board of Directors for NPower, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to create pathways to economic prosperity by launching digital careers for military veterans and young adults from underserved communities.

DJ Sampath is the VP of Product, AI Software and Platform where he leads AI product management across the Product Organization. DJ joined Cisco through the recent acquisition of Armorblox, a VC-backed AI cybersecurity startup, where he was the Founder and CEO. Prior to Armorblox, DJ was the Chief Architect, VP of Engineering and founding member of a Sequoia backed startup called StackRox which exited to RedHat. DJ’s technology career includes stints at Deutsche Telekom, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN). DJ holds a Ph.D. in computer engineering and has worked on projects funded by several government agencies.

Dev Stahlkopf is Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Cisco. She is responsible for driving the company’s legal strategy on key issues including AI, intellectual property, privacy and security, internet governance, cross-border data issues, geopolitical matters, and the company’s public policy priorities.

Prior to joining Cisco in 2021, Dev held several senior roles at Microsoft over the course of 14 years, most recently as Corporate Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in Microsoft’s Corporate, External & Legal Affairs organization.

Dev practiced law in the Seattle area at Perkins Coie, specializing in employment and labor law, and at Cooley Godward, focusing on corporate and technology transactions. She received her law degree from the University of Arizona, a Master of Arts degree in Philosophy from Duke University, and undergraduate degrees in English and Philosophy from the University of Washington.

Dev is passionate about building the next generation of leaders and driving innovation in the legal profession. Throughout her career, she has been a champion and advocate for the power of pro bono, helping to increase access to justice for underrepresented communities. She works to advance policies that build trust in technology as a board member for the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and currently sits on the Board of Directors of NextEra Energy. 

Thimaya Subaiya is Executive Vice President of Operations at Cisco, responsible for the company’s operations. He oversees Security & Trust, Supply Chain, and IT. Thimaya brings a strong track record of implementing growth strategies in the services and software businesses, balancing innovation, simplicity, and optimization to drive growth within Cisco.

In Thimaya’s previous role as Cisco’s Chief Transformation Officer, he focused on accelerating our shift to a software and as-a-service company to enable our ability to deliver innovation to customers and partners faster while also providing increased predictability in the business. Prior to that, he served as Chief Customer Experience Officer, responsible for driving innovation in the Cisco Success Portfolio and accelerating customer adoption, partner engagement and overall growth for Cisco’s Services, a $13 billion business.

Before joining Cisco, he was Chief Operation Officer of Customer Success and SVP of Global Marketing and Operations at Salesforce. He also held roles in business development and global planning and strategy. These roles uniquely position him to lead operations with a focus on revolutionizing Cisco’s operations for growth.