A New Day for Cisco’s Go-to-Market

Once we introduced the profitable shut of Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk on March 18, it marked the start of a brand new chapter for our firm, our prospects, and the market. Our complementary capabilities throughout safety, observability, and knowledge are going to assist our prospects enhance their digital resiliency and maximize the huge alternatives in areas like AI.

On the identical time, the calls for of our prospects are consistently evolving, they usually want a strategic accomplice who can modify to altering market circumstances and assist them obtain their most pressing outcomes. During the last 40 years, Cisco has constructed certainly one of most refined and intensive Go-to-Market (GTM) engines within the trade. Right this moment, we’re taking the subsequent step in that mission.

I’m happy to share that Gary Steele, the previous CEO of Splunk who joined Cisco as a part of the acquisition, will probably be getting into the newly created position of President, Go-to-Market. On this position, Gary and his group will evolve our gross sales and Go-to-Market motions to execute in opposition to technique, align with buyer wants, and drive a tradition of intense competitors, agility, and steady enchancment. Gary’s new group will embrace Cisco’s Gross sales, Companion, and International Advertising and marketing groups.

Since formally becoming a member of Cisco two months in the past, Gary has performed an integral position within the integration of Splunk, which is totally very important to our future development. To make sure we’re profitable on this mission, the Splunk group will stay reporting into Gary.

Gary brings over 30 years of expertise and a confirmed observe report of efficiently scaling SaaS operations and rising multi-billion-dollar international enterprises. In his two years as Splunk’s CEO, Gary grew revenues by almost 60%, together with ARR development of 35%, whereas driving a dramatic and profitable firm transformation and accelerated innovation throughout their portfolio. Because the founding CEO of Proofpoint, Gary grew the corporate from an early-stage start-up to a number one, publicly traded firm.

His operational mindset, mixed together with his intense deal with simplicity and confirmed skill to drive development, place him nicely as the brand new chief of this group. Representing the voice of the shopper, he’ll construct new processes, listening techniques, and suggestions loops to drive efficient prioritization, decision-making, and alignment between our GTM and engineering groups.

As a part of these adjustments, Jeff Sharritts, our present EVP and Chief Buyer and Companion Officer, will probably be leaving Cisco in direction of the tip of our fiscal yr in mid-July. Jeff is a 24-year Cisco veteran with an extended checklist of accomplishments. Recognized for his authenticity and integrity, he’s nicely revered at Cisco, and we’re grateful for his management and unwavering dedication to Cisco, and our prospects.

As we glance forward, I’m extraordinarily assured in our future and our skill to be the strategic accomplice our prospects want to realize their most urgent outcomes. With Splunk as part of Cisco, we’ve got distinctive and differentiated positions throughout AI, safety, observability, knowledge, and extra. Our portfolio of options is coming collectively in new methods to resolve challenges that had been as soon as deemed unsolvable.

I stay up for partnering deeply with Gary to make that occur and I’m grateful for Jeff’s a few years of partnership and friendship.

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