Dive Brief:
- Cisco’s chief technology officer and top cloud executive, Zorawar Biri Singh, is leaving the company, according to a CRN report. Among other things, Singh was responsible for the alignment of Cisco’s architecture and product portfolio.
- Singh will leave at the end of October after just 15 months with the company. Cisco said they have not yet filled his position.
- Singh is leaving at least partly due to the company's "evolving engineering strategy," according to the report. The company has already informed employees about "an updated alignment of our engineering teams."
Dive Insight:
Cisco has seen a number of executive shakeups as it works to reinvent itself in a new tech landscape. Last month, Robert Soderbery, the head of Cisco’s enterprise engineering division announced he was leaving the company, according to a post on LinkedIn.
Cisco did not explain Singh’s departure, but some of the company's partners told CRN that the company’s cloud strategy under Singh's leadership was unclear.
In an effort to evolve, Cisco has worked to shift its core offerings to focus on security, IoT, collaboration, the next generation of data center technology and cloud technology. Cisco has also struggled to maintain its revenue stream. Revenue for Cisco’s core businesses — switching and routing systems — has steadily weakened as the market has evolved.
In March, Cisco’s new CEO Chuck Robbins announced he was reorganizing the company's 25,000-employee engineering unit. That same engineering unit was reshuffled just two years ago under former CEO John Chambers.
