10 Cisco Executives That Recently Departed

Exit, Stage Left

CRN discovered last week that a pair of Cisco Systems visionaries for the networking giant's successful Unified Computing System left the company this month.

Over the past six months, several big executives left the San Jose, Calif.-based company, many of whom were poached by competitors such as Dell, VMware and Intel.

CRN takes a look at 10 Cisco executives who took a walk in the past six months.

Paul Perez

Last week it was discovered that Paul Perez, a visionary of Cisco's successful Unified Computing System, had left the company earlier this month. CRN learned that Perez is expected to join Dell as the company's next CTO in the enterprise group.

According to sources, Dell had been courting Perez for some time.

Perez was vice president and general manager of computing systems at Cisco, joining the company in 2011 following a 27-year stint at Hewlett-Packard. He helped drive the UCS server platform for the company, which has reached a $3 billion-plus run-rate with more than 41,000 customers.

Raju Datla

CRN discovered that another Cisco UCS leader, Raju Datla, left the networking giant earlier this month.

Datla was previously the co-founder and CEO of Cloupia, a developer of data center and cloud automation, and management software company, that Cisco acquired in November 2012.

He was vice president of the computing systems product group, leading the company's UCS software division. According to Datla's LinkedIn profile, he is now "exploring the unknown and the unseen."

Ryan Snell

A top sales executive for Cisco's Invicta solid state storage unit, Ryan Snell left the company in November.

He was the regional manager for the Americas division of Cisco's Solid State System group, and built a sales force to drive sales of UCS Invicta.

Two months before his departure, Cisco stopped shipping the UCS Invicta storage product after some customers experienced issues with deployment.

Snell joined Cisco through its $415 million acquisition of Whiptail, a storage vendor, in September 2013. He is currently vice president of sales at Lua Technologies, a mobile collaboration software startup company based in New York.

Dominick Delfino

Dominick Delfino, a 14-year Cisco veteran, jumped ship to VMware in September.

Delfino was vice president of worldwide data center and visualization systems engineering and played a large role in bringing Cisco products to market, such as the Nexus line of switches and MDS 9000 series of storage networking products.

He also helped drive sales of UCS servers, as well as Cisco's software-defined networking Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI). Delfino is currently vice president of worldwide systems engineering at VMware, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Sri Hosakote

Sri Hosakote spent nearly two decades at Cisco before leaving in November for Seagate Technology, a Shrewsbury, Mass.-based digital storage company.

He spent more than 19 years at Cisco, and was most recently senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's switching and wireless platform group.

Hosakote is now executive vice president of cloud systems and solutions, responsible for helping to extend Seagate's market position in the storage industry.

Chris Young

Intel Security poached security leader Chris Young from Cisco in September.

Young was senior vice president of Cisco's Security Business Group, tasked with overseeing strategy, engineering and product development for Cisco's security product business. He oversaw the integration of Cisco's $1 billion acquisition of Sourcefire.

He is currently senior vice president and general manager for Intel Security Group, leading product development and security strategy teams between Intel and McAfee.

Scott Lovett

Scott Lovett was an executive member of Cisco's sales team since 1994 until he left the company in September for Intel Security.

He was vice president of worldwide security sales for Cisco in charge of defining Cisco's go-to-market strategy for its security architecture and helped integrate sales operations after the acquisition of Sourcefire.

He is currently executive vice president of worldwide sales for Intel Security.

Kyle Mestery

Kyle Mestery was principal engineer for Cisco's OpenStack Architect in the Office of the Cloud before leaving in September for competitor Hewlett-Packard.

He is currently senior director, chief technologist of open source networking for HP.

Mestery was previously responsible for Cisco's open source strategy around OpenStack integration into its product portfolio, according to Mestery's LinkedIn profile.

Sujai Hajela

Sujai Hajela, senior vice president of Cisco's Enterprise Networking Group, left the company in October. He was in charge of product management and strategy for Cisco's wireless LAN, campus and data center switching, and campus routing portfolio, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He also helped lead the transition of Cisco's acquisition of Meraki for $1.2 billion in 2012. Hajela is currently working for a privately held startup company, according to his profile.

Surya Panditi

Surya Panditi was senior vice president and general manager of Service Provider Networking Group at Cisco before leaving in November.

He led Cisco's portfolio of high-end routing, access and optical products, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is currently chief executive officer and chairman of Vellum Tech, a Cupertino, Calif.-based application development company, according to the company's website.