New Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins did not waste any time in putting his personal stamp on the company, as he announced two new senior executive hires in his first day on the job Monday. Robbins took over the CEO role at the networking equipment maker after long-time CEO John Chambers left.
He noted a blog post Monday that Zorawar Biri Singh had been hired as a senior vice president and chief technology officer. Singh comes to Cisco from venture-capital firm Khosla Ventures, but has held senior positions at tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM earlier in his career.
Robbins also noted that Kevin Bandy will serve as senior vice president and chief digital officer, a positions whose job description includes assisting Cisco customers in evolving their businesses to incorporate new technologies and services. He comes to Cisco from a management position at Salesforce.com.
More on new Cisco management hires
Robbins appointment was announced a couple of months ago, and he had already made it clear he was looking to clean house at Cisco. He announced a management structure in the first week of June that did not include three longtime executives. In addition, two divisional presidents, Gary Moore and Rob Lloyd, have also tendered their resignations.
In his comments since taking the job, Robbins has noted that one major goal is to give Cisco a flatter executive structure with greater flexibility and quicker decision-making.
Forty-nine year-old Robbins has been employed at Cisco for 17 years, and has not hesitated to discontinue businesses that are tangential to the firm’s new strategy.
Related to this, California-based Cisco announced last Friday it will stop selling data-storage hardware, even though it just made a $415 million acquisition of Whiptail in 2013. The firm also noted earlier this month that it has reached a deal with Technicolor SA to pay about $600 million to buy Cisco’s TV set-top business, part of an ill-advised $6.9 billion acquisition almost nine years ago.
Statement from new Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins
“In the digital world, data—and the insights from that data—will be the most strategic asset,” Robbins wrote in his blog Monday. “The ability to secure, aggregate, automate, and draw insights from the data—with speed—will ultimately define success.”
