IT Leadership program

Chuck Robbins is a seasoned technology executive and the innovative leader driving Cisco’s vision to securely connect everything to make anything possible. He was named Chief Executive Officer in July of 2015, before being elected Chair of the Board on December 11, 2017. During this time, Robbins has driven Cisco’s transformation to redefine the company’s strategic direction and reinforce its position as a global technology powerhouse.

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.

His commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace has also played a key role in shaping Cisco's purpose to power an inclusive future for all. 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; a Board of Trustees member for the Ford Foundation; 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.

Radhika is CEO of the first-ever “AI moonshot factory” and one of Forbes’ 30 Women in AI to Watch. A brilliant and magnetic leader, she explains the human implications of generative AI: how it will affect every industry, what leaders need to know about how it works, and how to make it work for you.

Radhika’s Artificial Intelligence includes co-founding Seldn, an AI start-up that accurately predicted the rise of ISIS two weeks before The New York Times coined the term, and her work as CEO and co-founder of XLabs, a moonshot factory for Artificial Intelligence innovations that is already solving huge problems—like getting closer to the cure for cancer. At Ribo AI, her technology found potential cures for 11 cancers within its first 1.5 years.

Radhika was also a founding member of Shell’s $1.5B venture capital group and was COO of Rotary Gallop, a game theory-based fintech firm. Her work on quantum computing and Artificial Intelligence has been cited hundreds of times. She holds a Ph.D. in Quantum Computing and an M.S. in Nanotechnology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Mariely Bandas-Franzetti serves as the Vice President at Cisco, overseeing IT Product Lifecycle and Supply Chain Engineering. In this capacity, Mariely leads Cisco's IT strategy for Product Lifecycle, Supply Chain Demand, Plan, Component Business, Services, and Logistics. She leads her teams to create high-value experiences for customers, partners, and Cisco Sellers. Together, they drive innovation and manage day-to-day operations for a hardware business of $40 billion, an Install Base business of $650 billion, and $14 billion in Services Revenue, including $3.5 billion in Enterprise Agreements, across 190 countries.

With over two decades of leadership experience in diverse technology sectors such as software, services, hardware, and networking technology, Mariely is a transformational leader and an engineer at heart. Before joining Cisco, she served as Vice President of Dell Technology, supporting an organization of 60,000+ employees operating in 170 different countries and managing $16 billion in service revenue.

Beyond her professional achievements, Mariely is recognized for her leadership in allyship, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. She proudly serves as the executive sponsor for Cisco Conexion and Women Technical Leadership Incubation program (WTLI). Mariely is a passionate advocate for empowering women in leadership roles globally, earning recognition as one of the top HITEC 100 US IT Leaders from 2017 to 2024.

Mariely holds multiple manufacturing patents. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico and holds a Master of Science in International Logistics from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Industrial Engineering School.

Dr Jordan Nguyen is a leading Australian engineer, inventor, and innovator, who is committed to improving as many lives as possible, as well as becoming a driving force behind both human and technological evolution as we move into the future.

An internationally renowned engineer for humanity, Jordan designs life-changing technologies to transform the lives of people with disabilities and the elderly through his role as founder of Psykinetic, a social business committed to bringing positive, sustainable and life-altering change. He also shares his adventures through documentaries across the world. Inspired by human endeavor, Jordan has big ambitions to see our world step consciously and creatively into a better future.

Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration. He leverages a diverse set of capabilities to lead the strategy and development for these businesses and also owns P&L responsibility for this multibillion-dollar portfolio. Jeetu combines a bold vision, steeped in product design and development expertise, operational rigor and innate market understanding to create high growth Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses.

A member of the Executive Leadership Team, Jeetu is helping to redefine Cisco's SaaS business and strategy to further accelerate the company's transformation and growth. His mission is to build world class, subscription-based products that solve Cisco customers’ biggest problems. His team is creating and designing meaningfully differentiated products that diverge in the way they’re conceived, built, priced, packaged and sold.

Prior to joining Cisco, 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.

Join Cisco speakers and your peers at two special events: Monday’s Welcome Mixer at 8:15 a.m., and Tuesday’s ITL Reception at 4 p.m.

Carrie Palin is the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Cisco. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, she champions Cisco’s purpose of ‘powering an inclusive future for all’ by leading the company’s multi-faceted marketing practice to fuel growth and impact in the market.

Palin and her team are responsible for increasing demand for Cisco products and solutions while evolving the company’s iconic and trusted brand. Her responsibilities include regional field, industries, digital, and partner marketing, in addition to corporate brand strategy and global events. Under her leadership, Cisco was recognized by Interbrand as the number one pure B2B brand globally. She also spearheaded a globally recognized transformation of Cisco.com, completely reimagining the digital experience for Cisco's customers.

Before joining Cisco, Palin gained extensive experience leading enterprise marketing organizations in the technology sector. Most recently, she served as CMO of Splunk where she played a pivotal role in revamping the brand in 2019. Prior to Splunk, Carrie served as CMO at SendGrid (acquired by Twilio), and as the first CMO at Box. She was also Vice President of Marketing for IBM’s Cloud Data Services/Analytics Division. Carrie began her career at Dell and spent more than 16 years driving global go-to-market strategy and leading various marketing organizations across the data center portfolio.

Carrie is a strong advocate for Women in Technology and an ally for Cisco’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and is currently an executive sponsor of Cisco’s North America chapter of Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) inclusive community. Her leadership and industry impact have earned her several accolades, including her recent recognition on the Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list in 2023. 

Originally from Austin, Texas, Carrie holds a B.S. from Texas Christian University and serves on the Board of Directors of NetApp. She and her husband Jesse are the proud parents of two children.

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 intellectual property, privacy and security, internet governance, cross-border data issues, geopolitical matters, and the company’s public policy priorities.

Dev is a strong advocate for diversity in the legal profession and is passionate about building the next generation of leaders. She is also deeply focused on driving innovation in the legal profession.

Prior to joining Cisco, 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. Prior to Microsoft, she 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 currently sits on the boards of several organizations. She is a board member for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD), a coalition of leaders in the legal industry working to build a more open and diverse legal profession. She also serves on the Corporate Pro Bono Institute advisory board, working to help close the gap in access to justice and help those in need of pro bono legal services. 

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, Sustainability, Social Impact, Government Affairs & Policy, Workplace Resources, and 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 27-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 has been recognized on the Forbes and Know Your Value 50 Over 50 list, honoring dynamic female leaders and entrepreneurs. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for 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.

Liz Centoni is Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer. In this role, she leads a 20,000 strong team who helps customers transform, differentiate, and accelerate their business value through a broad portfolio of software, subscription, and lifecycle services. She has a passion for applying technology to facilitate and support customer success and adoption across the entire portfolio, and ultimately deliver unparalleled experiences in new and innovative ways. 

Liz recently served as Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, and GM of Applications at Cisco. As Cisco’s Chief Strategy Officer, she helped to drive the multi-national digital technology corporation’s overall strategic direction. As General Manager of Applications, she led the business strategy and development efforts for the SaaS portfolio that powers optimized experiences for customers‘ applications, which are increasingly central to their businesses in today‘s digital, cloud-first world. She also helped design, develop and launch Outshift by Cisco, a team incubating emerging technologies to create new markets and businesses for Cisco. She is a voting member of Cisco’s Investment review board which directs the company’s efforts with startups and the global venture community.

Other Cisco roles include Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco‘s Cloud, Compute, and IoT business. Liz was instrumental in developing, executing, and evangelizing Cisco‘s IoT portfolio strategy in Industrial IoT, Edge Intelligence and SaaS-based cellular connectivity platform for devices ranging from Connected Cars to Smart meters, driving it to profitable growth and leading Digital Transformation initiatives. In Cloud and Computing Systems, Liz led the team to define and execute the strategy enabling our customers’ operating model needs in Hybrid Cloud. This included building the SaaS hybrid cloud platform, expanding into adjacent markets such as Hyperconverged and leading the industry in cloud-managed solutions for the compute market.

In addition, she has held multiple engineering roles leading global teams building software and central engineering services, executing engineering plans with feature velocity, quality and focus on getting it right for the customer.

Liz Centoni is an active mentor and sponsor of underrepresented groups, including serving as Cisco’s Global Executive Sponsor for the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program.

Jonathan Davidson is Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Networking, the organization responsible for optics, hardware, software, and systems innovations. Cisco Networking helps enterprise, service provider, public sector, and hyperscaler customers transform and digitalize their businesses with networking, cloud automation, and premium user experiences.

Jonathan previously led the Mass-scale Infrastructure Group and, prior to that, Cisco’s service provider business. He also co-authored Voice-over IP Fundamentals and speaks regularly at industry events.

Don't miss the extended lunches on Monday through Wednesday with different hands-on activities to participate in. See the agenda for specific times and details.