Pankaj Patel

Pankaj Patel recently served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer at Cisco Systems, where he reported to the CEO as the engineering head of the company’s $38 billion product and solution portfolio. He drove the business and technology strategy across Cisco’s Routing, Switching, Wireless, Security, Mobility, Video, Collaboration, Data Center and Cloud offerings, which were delivered by a global team of over 26,000 engineers.

Pankaj is a results-oriented and seasoned technology leader with over 25 years of experience developing highly scalable products and services by building and leading large, high-performance global engineering organizations, setting clear vision, directing strategy and delivering against goals. He is passionate about translating strategy to execution and delivering the best experience for the customer.

Pankaj retired from Cisco in October of 2016 and now serves on the Board of Directors of several startups. He is focused on incubating and advising startups, particularly in the areas of strategy, product development, go-to-market plans and scaling. In addition, Pankaj serves as a mentor and sponsor to numerous employees throughout the industry.