The Century’s 30 Greatest Vendor Leaders – Part 2

“John Chambers is a visionary who can see into the future. He’s also one of the most inspirational speakers I’ve met. He’d do a one-hour keynote from memory, talking while walking up and down the room, bringing the audience with him.”

“I got the opportunity to sit front row at a John Chambers presentation around the time Cisco acquired Tandberg. His presentation that lasted approximately an hour had only three slides, and he did not speak about products or technology directly once. He spoke about how technology empowers humans and brings communities together and drives collaboration. This was the start of the Cisco marketing campaign around the Power of the Human Network, which was far ahead of its time. His presentation was amazing and inspiring beyond words. I nominated John Chambers as a top vendor leader because he transformed Cisco Systems from a circa $1 billion organisation to the global/market leader in the networking space, growing the revenues to approx $50 billion in his 20-year tenure. During this time, he also made Cisco a leading organisation in driving more and more value to the product set through strategic acquisition, creating markets through technology and being a pioneer around IT Security, IoT Internet Protocol.”

“John made Cisco, without any question, the number-one channel-focused business in our industry for the last two decades. With an unswerving commitment to partners, he is a leader who inspires people to follow him, however tough the journey.”

“John Chambers must be hailed as one of the most significant business leaders of the modern ages whether discussing technology or non-technology organisations. Under his leadership Cisco continually reinvented itself to be at the forefront of positive market changes in networking, software, security and IT platforms building beyond its networking infrastructure heritage and remains one of the most innovative and relevant technology organisations on the planet. Without doubt John Chambers’ highly successful stewardship of Cisco, which was not without its challenges, makes a great knowledge template for MBA students and future business leaders.”

“Under Chambers, Cisco became the poster child for a partner-centric company. It proudly boasted its partner-centricity, with over 90% of revenues coming from indirect routes. Partners that achieved the highly coveted Gold status were fiercely loyal, and in turn, were treated well by Cisco. It was a pioneer for partner programs, specialisations, compensation strategies, distribution centricity, and partner-led services, to name a few. Its fraternity of executives are now spread far and wide across the industry, driving that partner-centric approach to their respective companies.”

“John Chambers led huge consolidation and the creation of one of the leading technology businesses.”

“As a former network engineer working in the late 90s, the boom of our good friends Cisco cannot go unnoticed, in particular at that time it has to be John T Chambers, who had a whopping 20-year tenure and led their bubble-era rise to being the world’s most valuable company. I myself ended up retaining and learning all things Cisco which I would say is still today the leader.”