Guy Diedrich

SVP & Global Innovation Officer at Cisco

Dr. Guy Diedrich is a Senior Vice President and the Global Innovation Officer for Cisco Systems where he is responsible for its Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program. In this role, Dr. Diedrich collaborates closely with government and industry leadership in over 40 countries around the world to drive mass scale digitization initiatives that help increase GDP, create millions of next-generation jobs and develop sustainable innovation ecosystems. With over 1000 active or completed projects since CDA’s inception in 2015, Dr. Diedrich continues to grow and evolve the program into new markets, and build trust with government, industry and academic stakeholders.

Prior to his current role at Cisco Systems, Dr. Diedrich was a Vice Chancellor at the Texas A&M University System where he was responsible for research, commercialization, federal government relations, state government relations and strategic initiatives.

Before joining Texas A&M, Dr. Diedrich served as President and CEO of GRA Inc., a software development and consulting company that he co-founded and grew from a start-up to a firm employing more than 130 professionals. The company was sold to a publicly-traded technology company.

Dr. Diedrich holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Texas A&M University, a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge (Kings College) and a Ph.D. from Swansea University where he studied the economics of trust in organizations. Dr. Diedrich is a published author in cost accounting and medical psychology, and has worked extensively throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East for more than two decades.

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Austin, United States

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Cisco

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Cisco enables people to make powerful connections--whether in business, education, philanthropy, or creativity. Cisco hardware, software, and service offerings are used to create the Internet solutions that make networks possible--providing easy access to information anywhere, at any time. Cisco was founded in 1984 by a small group of computer scientists from Stanford University. Since the company's inception, Cisco engineers have been leaders in the development of Internet Protocol (IP)-based networking technologies. Today, with more than 71,000 employees worldwide, this tradition of innovation continues with industry-leading products and solutions in the company's core development areas of routing and switching, as well as in advanced technologies such as home networking, IP telephony, optical networking, security, storage area networking, and wireless technology. In addition to its products, Cisco provides a broad range of service offerings, including technical support and advanced services. Cisco sells its products and services, both directly through its own sales force as well as through its channel partners, to large enterprises, commercial businesses, service providers, and consumers. Cisco helps seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the unconnected. An integral part of their DNA is creating long-lasting customer partnerships, working together to identify their customers' needs and provide solutions that fuel their success. They have preserved this keen focus on solving business challenges since their founding. Len Bosack and wife Sandy Lerner, both working for Stanford University, wanted to email each other from their respective offices, but technological shortcomings did not allow such communication. A technology had to be invented to deal with disparate local area protocols, and as a result of solving their challenge, the multiprotocol router was born.