1. Pankaj Patel
Last Cisco Position: Executive Vice President, Chief Development Officer
Pankaj Patel, one of the networking giant's longtime leading technologists, revealed earlier this year his plans to step down after a 20-year stint with Cisco. As executive vice president and chief development officer, he was responsible for driving innovation in Cisco's networking and data center architectures -- leading the company's $36 billion global technology portfolio and its 26,000 engineers.
"Patel has fearlessly led our 26,000-plus-strong engineering organization, helping to build the most innovative engineering engine in the industry," said Robbins in an internal memo about his departure.
Patel helped define Cisco's technology innovation strategy in routing, switching, security, video, collaboration, data center and cloud offerings.
