A New Day for Cisco’s Go-to-Market

After 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 continuously evolving, they usually want a strategic accomplice who can regulate 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 in depth Go-to-Market (GTM) engines within the trade. Right this moment, we’re taking the following 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 moving into the newly created function of President, Go-to-Market. On this function, Gary and his workforce will evolve our gross sales and Go-to-Market motions to execute towards technique, align with buyer wants, and drive a tradition of intense competitors, agility, and steady enchancment. Gary’s new group will embody Cisco’s Gross sales, Accomplice, and International Advertising groups.

Since formally becoming a member of Cisco two months in the past, Gary has performed an integral function 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 workforce 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 world enterprises. In his two years as Splunk’s CEO, Gary grew revenues by practically 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 concentrate on simplicity and confirmed means to drive development, place him effectively as the brand new chief of this group. Representing the voice of the client, 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 Accomplice Officer, will probably be leaving Cisco in the direction of the top of our fiscal yr in mid-July. Jeff is a 24-year Cisco veteran with a protracted checklist of accomplishments. Recognized for his authenticity and integrity, he’s effectively 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 means to be the strategic accomplice our prospects want to realize their most urgent outcomes. With Splunk as part of Cisco, now we have distinctive and differentiated positions throughout AI, safety, observability, knowledge, and extra. Our portfolio of options is coming collectively in new methods to unravel 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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