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Cisco has seemingly moved a step closer to settling the long-unanswered question of succession with the appointment of two presidents for the company.
Cisco Thursday said Gary Moore (pictured left) has been appointed as president and COO, a position that makes him accountable for operations and alignment of company resources to support long-term strategies.
Cisco also appointed Rob Lloyd as the company's new president of development and sales.
[Related: Cisco's Chambers Plans Retirement, Names Potential Successors]
Lloyd, who has been serving as Cisco's executive vice president of worldwide operations, will be replaced by Chuck Robbins, who previously ran the Americas sales region.
Robbins, as well as Pankaj Patel, executive vice president and chief development officer, and Wim Elfrink, executive vice president and chief globalization officer, will report to Lloyd.
With the promotion of Lloyd and Moore, the question of who will eventually succeed John Chambers as CEO seems closer to being answered.
Chambers, who is 63 years old, said in an interview with Bloomberg last week that he is two to four years away from retirement and that there are within Cisco. He also said Cisco's board of directors review that list every quarter.
Among the potential candidates identified by Chambers are Lloyd and Robbins, as well as Edzard Overbeek, Cisco's new senior vice president of global services.
An update to the Bloomberg story later added Moore to the list, with Chambers indicating that Moore would likely succeed him if Chambers were suddenly forced to leave his post.
"We do [transitions] extremely well. You will see me transition to [just] chairman," Chambers said in an interview with CRN Monday, reiterating that the company has a deep bench of quality leaders within the management team.
Chambers in a statement Thursday said Cisco is in the process of evolving its organization and leadership team to grab the opportunity to take a leadership role in the communications and IT industry in the next decade.
"We're optimizing the alignment across development and sales, and on the top priorities of our customers, to maximize speed to market and our competitive advantage. At the same time, we are focusing on operational excellence across the company, which creates capacity for innovation, investment and growth," Chambers said.
Chad Berndtson contributed to this story.
PUBLISHED OCT. 4, 2012
