Marie Hattar, Vice President, Network Systems and Security Solutions, Cisco
Mick Scully, Vice President, Product Management, Access Routing, Cisco
Shailesh Shukla, Vice President Product Management, Edge Routing, Cisco
Bob Berlin, Director, Product Management, Access Routing, Cisco

Matthew Fredrickson, IT Director, Council Rock School District
Jennifer Geisler, Senior Manager, Network Systems, Cisco

Gregory Gotsis, ITC Project Manager, Greece Ministry of Interior
Martin Patten, Senior Manager, Technical Marketing, Cisco Europe

Dave Cahill, CIO, Van Meter Industrial
Tore Gillbrand, Director, Access Routing, Cisco

Riccardo Salierno, CIO, Liquigas Italiana
Martin Patten, Senior Manager, Technical Marketing, Cisco Europe

Jerry Caron, Vice President, Current Analysis
Martin Patten, Senior Manager, Technical Marketing, Cisco Europe

Shailesh is the Vice President of Product Management for the Edge Routing Business Unit at Cisco. Prior to joining Cisco, Shailesh was the Vice President, Corporate Development and Vice President, Marketing for the Service Provider business at Juniper Networks. In this capacity, he worked across the product, field and marketing teams to drive Juniper’s Go-To-Market strategy in the service provider market across all four segments: wireline, wireless, cable and content. Prior to that, for almost 7 years, Shailesh played a variety of roles at Redback Networks, leading product marketing, corporate marketing, business development and corporate strategy. Prior to joining Juniper, he served as the vice president of corporate strategy and business development, responsible for formulating Redback's strategy and driving its implementation through strategic initiatives, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions and investments. He led 3 acquisitions, 5 equity investments and served on the board of 2 companies on behalf of Redback. Prior to that, for three and a half years until April of 2005, he served as the Vice President for Marketing and Business Development, overseeing worldwide corporate marketing, product marketing, and partnerships. Shailesh was responsible for Redback’s successful relaunch in the market post-restructuring and for re-branding and repositioning of the company.

Previously, Mr. Shukla was a partner at Mercer Management Consulting, a strategy-consulting firm in Boston, in their Communications Information and Entertainment (CIE) industry practice. His engagements ranged across the telecom industry for corporate Strategy, growth initiatives, marketing strategy and product development. Shailesh has also worked at Booz-Allen and Hamilton in New York in a similar capacity.

Prior to his consulting career, Mr. Shukla led company-wide programs at Sprint Corporation headquarters in Kansas City , Mo. in the areas of intelligent networks and value-added services.

Shailesh holds an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge , Massachusetts . He also has a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas and a Bachelor's degree with Honors in Electrical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani , India.

Mick Scully, VP Product Management for the Access Routing Technology Group, leads the marketing and strategy efforts for Cisco’s integrated security and voice access routing products and solutions. Mick is a well-known veteran in the networking industry with 25+ years of expertise ranging from products, technology, M&A, marketing and strategies.  Prior to joining Cisco he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Venrock, focusing on Security investments and strategies for the firm and has held senior positions at Proteon Networks, Ungermann Bass Networks, Bay Networks, and Wellfleet Communications and was Founder, President and CEO of Appian Communications. 

 Dave Cahill and Tore Gillbrand

As CIO, Cahill provides leadership for Van Meter’s IT initiatives. Van Meter Industrial, Inc. is a 100% employee owned Electrical Wholesale distributor that serves the Iowa market.  Since joining Van Meter in 1989, Cahill has held various management positions, including director of IT, and sales responsibilities. Cahill serves on the Board of Directors of Werner Electric Supply Minnesota and the American Cancer Society New Directions committee.


Tore Gillbrand is the director of marketing for Cisco’s Access Routing Technology Group, where he is responsible for technology strategy and marketing of the IOS Software for Cisco’s Portfolio of Integrated Services Routers.  A 12-year veteran of Cisco Gillbrand has also managed the outbound access routing product team for Europe, Middle East and Africa, developing relationships with customers, resellers and serive-providers.

Gillbrand, holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

William Choe is the director of product management for the Ethernet Switching Technology Group at Cisco. In this position, he leads a team in the development of market leading fixed configuration Ethernet switching solutions for the mid-market, enterprise campus and data center.

Choe is a 13-year Cisco veteran and has played a number of key roles in hardware development across the company.  This includes the development of Cisco’s first billion dollar fixed configuration product family, the Catalyst 3500XL platform. 

Choe received his Bachelor of Science from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, California and his Masters of Business Administration from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California.


Fred Kost is the director of security solutions marketing at Cisco and responsible for marketing the Cisco Self-Defending Network security portfolio.  Prior to Cisco, Kost has been involved in network security and held executive marketing roles with Symantec, nCircle, Recourse and Blue Lane, and has twenty years of combined marketing and product development experience. 

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina.


Tore Gillbrand is the director of marketing for Cisco’s Access Routing Technology Group, where he is responsible for technology strategy and marketing of the IOS Software for Cisco’s Portfolio of Integrated Services Routers.
A 12-year veteran of Cisco Gillbrand has also managed the outbound access routing product team for Europe, Middle East and Africa, developing relationships with customers, resellers and serive-providers.

Gillbrand, holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Matthew Frederickson brings more than 20 years of IT experience to the Council Rock School District, where he serves as director of Information Technology. Frederickson's main focus is to implement modern technology and business practices for the district, which serves 12,500 students in Newtown, PA. Some of these initiatives included replacing aging ATM infrastructure with gigabit over fiber between 18 buildings and replacing legacy phone switches with VoIP --- resulting in a savings of more than $75,000 the first year. Frederickson served as a First Lieutenant in the United States Army Reserve. He received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Shippensburg University in Shipensburg, PA and a Masters in Business Administration from LaSalle University in Philadelphia.

Sherri Liebo, Vice President, Cisco Services, Cisco
William Choe, Director, Catalyst Switching, Cisco
Tore Gillbrand, Director, Access Routing, Cisco
Greg Beach, Director, Wireless Networking, Cisco
Fred Kost, Director, Security, Cisco

Joao Bezerra Leite, CTO/IT Director, Banco Itau
Luis Rego, Director of Vertical Sales, Cisco Latin America

Marco Michelotti, IT Manager, LeasePlan
Martin Patten, Senior Manager, Technical Marketing, Cisco Europe

Eric Hicks, Director of IT, Burnham Institute for Medical Research
Daryl Schweiger, IS Manager, The Cardiovascular Group
Martina Beitat, Senior Product Manager, Edge Routing, Cisco

Nick Lippis, Analyst, Lippis Enterprises, Inc.
Rob Sloan, Manager, Network Systems, Cisco

Kumar Srikantan, Vice President, Catalyst Switching, Cisco
Jonathan Davidson, Director, Edge Routing, Cisco
Sarat Khilnani, Director, Access Routing, Cisco
Ramesh Kaza, Director, Advances Services, Cisco
Jennifer Geisler, Senior Manager, Network Systems, Cisco

Darren O'Connor, CIO, The Reject Shop
Les Williamson, Vice President, Cisco Asia Pacific

Ushir Bhatt, CIO, The Future Group and CEO, Future Knowledge Services
V.C. Gopalratnam, CIO, Cisco India

Andreas Antonopoulos, Senior Vice President And Founding partner, Nemertes Research
Sanket Amberkar, Manager, Network Systems, Cisco

As leader for the Cisco Services Segment Marketing teams, Sherri Liebo oversees the Cisco Services growth and go-to-market strategy for the small, medium and enterprise business markets. Her team works in concert with various corporate marketing groups and cross-functional business councils to execute the segment marketing component of Cisco’s business strategies.

Liebo brings to Cisco 17 years of experience that encompasses strategic planning, alliance development, worldwide service development and launch, channel management, and regional go-to-market execution.

She graduated from the University of Florida with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. She also holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.



William Choe is the director of product management for the Ethernet Switching Technology Group at Cisco. In this position, he leads a team in the development of market leading fixed configuration Ethernet switching solutions for the mid-market, enterprise campus and data center.

Choe is a 13-year Cisco veteran and has played a number of key roles in hardware development across the company.  This includes the development of Cisco’s first billion dollar fixed configuration product family, the Catalyst 3500XL platform. 

Choe received his Bachelor of Science from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, California and his Masters of Business Administration from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. 



Tore Gillbrand is the director of marketing for Cisco’s Access Routing Technology Group, where he is responsible for technology strategy and marketing of the IOS Software for Cisco’s Portfolio of Integrated Services Routers.
A 12-year veteran of Cisco Gillbrand has also managed the outbound access routing product team for Europe, Middle East and Africa, developing relationships with customers, resellers and serive-providers.

Gillbrand, holds a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.



Greg Beach serves as the director of product management within Cisco’s Wireless Networking Business Unit, where he is responsible for the operations and roadmap of their indoor and outdoor access point portfolio.

Prior to Cisco, Beach was a Lieutenant on the USS Alabama in the US Navy’s nuclear submarine program. While on board, he was qualified Navy Nuclear Engineer by the Department of Energy and led divisions responsible for sonar, fire control, torpedo, missile, reactor control and electrical systems. 

Beach holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School.



Fred Kost is the director of security solutions marketing at Cisco and responsible for marketing the Cisco Self-Defending Network security portfolio.  Prior to Cisco, Kost has been involved in network security and held executive marketing roles with Symantec, nCircle, Recourse and Blue Lane, and has twenty years of combined marketing and product development experience. 

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina.

When meeting with some of my industry peers, I often get asked “How’s Cisco doing?”. In some ways it is a loaded question. On one hand, I think Cisco is doing extremely well considering today’s turbulent times. The innovation engine is humming along. On the other, it’s not being complacent either taking things easy. With a publicly stated goal of cutting costs by $1 billion by July, it’s a challenge that’s top-down and across the company. It’s fair to say a lot of these costs savings are through increasing operational efficiency and better collaboration.

There are different ways to weather turbulent times. Solid cash and cashflow. Good M&A strategy. Good leadership, strategy and execution. Frugality. Sustained innovation coupled with operational excellence. If it were a multiple choice question, this is the one that you’d tick “E” – “All of the Above”.  To a large extent it is about understanding market transitions, and being in a good enough position to drive some of it.

Funnily enough, none of this is new. This stood us in good stead during the dot-com crash and technology-led bust of the early 2000s. A quick search on Amazon.com will reveal books like “John Chambers and the Cisco Way: Navigating through volatility” and “The Eye of the Storm: How John Chambers steered Cisco through the technology collapse”. I’ve often heard John remark, that Cisco has benefited tremendously by being a good listner, understand our customer requirements and working with them to execute.

This time, our ears are perked up even more, as our customers and partners are challenging themselves (and us) to deliver operational excellence with limited budgets and without compromising on innovation. “Do more with less” is the clarion call.

Cisco IT Innovation Forum
This is a challenge we have to resolve together with our customers and partners on a global basis, by proactive partnership, transparency and sharing best practices. Any product innovations are a means and not an end to deliver on our customer requirements.

In line with this mindset, on May 7th, 2009, Cisco is hosting a Virtual IT Innovations Forum, an interactive platform that brings together our global customers, our solution partners, industry analysts and some of our own executive and technology talent from within Cisco to share best practices and ideas to weather this economic downturn and prepare for the upturn.

Despite the seriousness of the current economic climate, a little humor never hurts. Thank God for Scott Adams. We’ve our own take on injecting a little humor. Some of it is reflected in these viral videos that our team put together to help promote the Innovation Forum. This one’s titled “The copier”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oirb7XYd2V8

Look out and watch for the other videos in the series. After you’ve had a good chuckle, or fallen out of your chair, go ahead and take the next step. Register to attend the Cisco IT Innovations Forum on May 7th.

It’s FREE! You don’t have to leave your desk to hear some of the best minds in the business talk shop.

What better way to foster Innovation? Or Operational Excellence? Or Both?

I’ll share specifics around some of these sessions in upcoming blogs. For those of you, who absolutely cannot make it on the 7th, don’t lose heart. We’ll have these as on-demand sessions thereafter for a few months.

In the meantime - before, during or after the Cisco Virtual IT Innovation Forum, you can interact with us on the CiscoGeeks Twitter Website, our various Facebook sites, or provide your questions or comments during some of the sessions on May 7th.

As mentioned in my previous blog, on May 7th, less than three days from today, curtains will rise on the Cisco IT Innovation Forum - a 360-degree customer-focussed event involving Cisco’s customers from all over the world, industry thought leaders from various analyst firms and of course, Cisco business and technology experts.

What’s in it for you?
All our keynote speakers, panelists and other presenters are going to share their thoughts and experience on how to sustain innovation in turbulent times while navigating to survive. Though there is no one size fits all, these are times when the bulk of organizations resonate to a few common problems, and are looking for creative practices to lower costs in the workplace, improve productivity and think outside the box in how they leverage IT not just as a cost center but as a strategic asset to their business.

Who’s speaking?
We have our customers sharing their experiences and advocating best practices from across the globe. It’s not “Cisco-speak” and believe me you don’t want to miss this -

- Joao D. Bezerra Leite, Director, IT Operations and Infrastructure, Itau Bank
- Ushir Bhatt, Chief Executive Officer, Future Group
- Dave Cahill, Chief Information Officer, Van Meter Industrial, Inc.
- Matthew Frederickson, Director, Information Technology, Council Rock School District
- Grigorios Gkotsis, Project Manager, Consultant, Information Society S.A., of Ministry of Interior
- Eric Hicks, Director, Information Technology, Burnham Institute for Medical Research
- Marco Michelotti, Manager, Information and Communication, Leaseplan
- Darren O’Connor, Chief Information Officer, The Reject Shop
- Riccardo Salierno, Chief Information Officer, Liquigas S.p.A.
- Daryl Schweiger, Manager, Information Systems, Cardiovascular Group

Also, don’t miss out on some of the leading analysts from Nemertes group, Current Analysis and the Lippis report, or the Keynote session with Cisco executives Mick Scully, Marie Hattar, Shailesh Shukla moderated by Bob Berlin. Believe me, none of them are shy to voice their opinions.

Register now @ http://www.ciscoitinnovationsforum.com. It’s Virtual and Free!

Interact with us:
If you’re a Twitter fan, follow the contest on the CiscoGeeks Twitter feed. If you’d like to post comments on Facebook, check out the sites on Cisco Routers and Cisco Switches.

And if you miss the event on May 7th, you always check out the forum website later on. With Cisco, you got options