Tuszik On The Move

Cisco Channel Chief Oliver Tuszik has been at the helm of the Global Partner Organization for four years and 10 months. Now, at the nearly five-year mark, the channel veteran is moving on from his post to tackle his latest opportunity leading Cisco’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

Tuszik in his new role is relocating back to his home country of Germany and is succeeding Cisco’s current EMEA President Wendy Mars as of Aug. 1, the same day that Mars is leaving the company to retire.

A longtime friend of the channel, Tuszik has been working with—and for—solution providers for a long time. The networking giant in 2018 named Tuszik senior vice president of global partner sales and routes to market following Tuszik’s previous five years that he spent as vice president and general manager of Cisco Germany after joining the company in 2013. Before that, he spent a decade working for U.K.-based Computacenter, one of Cisco’s largest channel partners, were he was CEO of Computacenter Germany for five years.

Five years in any role seems to be Tuszik’s “magic number,” and the point where he’s ready to hand over the reins and move on to a new challenge, the executive told CRN. But Tuszik isn’t going far. In his capacity as Cisco EMEA leader, he’ll still be deeply involved with Cisco partners. After all, the company does about 90 percent of its business through the channel, he said.

On the day that he announced his new role, Tuszik spent some time with CRN to talk about the new opportunity, what he’s looking forward to, and what partners can expect from Cisco and his yet-to-be-named successor.

What follows are excerpts from the conversation.