Cisco Organizational Structure

About the company

Cisco Systems builds the switching, routing, wireless, security, collaboration and observability products that enterprises and service providers run their networks on, and increasingly the infrastructure underneath AI workloads. It reported $56.7 billion of revenue in the fiscal year ended 26 July 2025 with roughly 86,200 employees, is headquartered in San Jose and trades on Nasdaq as CSCO.

The company is a single operating entity rather than a group. There is no intermediate holding layer: acquisitions, Splunk in 2024 among them, are absorbed as product organizations inside Cisco rather than kept as separately governed businesses, which is why one chart can describe the whole company.

What makes the structure worth studying is the gap between how Cisco reports and how Cisco runs. Its three reportable segments are geographies, but no geography owns a full profit and loss; the real operating axes are a central product organization, a worldwide sales force and a set of corporate functions that all terminate at the CEO.

Cisco Systems, Inc. organizational chart

Cisco Systems, Inc.'s reporting structure as of 2026-08. Drag to pan, scroll to zoom — or open it in QueryChart and edit it as your own.

Functional at the top, geographic in the accounts, matrixed in practice

The top of the chart is a Chair and CEO with an executive leadership team of roughly a dozen. Product and engineering sit under one President and Chief Product Officer; worldwide sales under an EVP and Chief Sales Officer; and Finance, Legal, People, Operations, Marketing, Customer Experience, Strategy, Communications and a strategic-projects seat each report directly to the CEO. Legally the circle is smaller still: the 2025 proxy designates only six Section 16 executive officers out of a company of 86,200 people.

Consolidating every product line under one executive was a deliberate fiscal 2025 change. The proxy records Jeetu Patel being promoted first to EVP and Chief Product Officer and then to President and Chief Product Officer, replacing an arrangement in which several business-group leaders reported separately to the CEO. Beneath that seat the product portfolio is run as business units with SVP general managers: infrastructure and security, AI software and platform, enterprise connectivity and collaboration, and Splunk.

Sales is organized once, globally, and then split into theatres — Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China — which are also the three reportable segments. The FY2025 10-K is explicit about how thin that segmentation is: the CEO is the chief operating decision maker, segments are measured only on revenue and segment gross margin, and R&D, sales and marketing and general and administrative expenses are not allocated to them. A theatre president therefore carries a revenue number for products owned by a central function, which is the matrix in one sentence.

Two structural choices sit beside that spine. Customer Experience — services, support, adoption and renewals — is a peer of sales under its own EVP rather than a division of it, a bet on the subscription transition that reached $31.5 billion, or 56% of revenue, in fiscal 2025. And Splunk still keeps a distinct internal leadership spine more than two years after the deal closed: Cisco's senior-leader listing shows a Splunk general manager alongside separate Splunk leaders for sales, platform, security, observability and services, which is what partial integration looks like from outside.

Key leadership roles

1. Chuck Robbins

   Chair and Chief Executive Officer — Holds both the chair and the CEO seat; the board offsets the combination with a lead independent director who presides over his evaluation.

2. Jeetu Patel

   President and Chief Product Officer — Single owner of product and engineering after a two-step fiscal 2025 promotion that pulled several previously CEO-reporting business groups under one seat.

3. Mark Patterson

   EVP and Chief Financial Officer — Appointed during fiscal 2025; one of the six executive officers Cisco designates under Section 16.

4. Oliver Tuszik

   EVP, Global Sales and Chief Sales Officer — Runs one worldwide sales organization split into the three geographic theatres Cisco also reports as segments.

5. Liz Centoni

   EVP and Chief Customer Experience Officer — Customer Experience reports to the CEO rather than into sales, which is what keeps renewals and adoption out of the new-bookings queue.

6. Thimaya Subaiya

   EVP, Operations — Named as an executive officer in Cisco's proxy; supply chain sits beneath this seat.

7. Dev Stahlkopf

   EVP and Chief Legal Officer

8. Francine Katsoudas

   EVP and Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer — Holds HR, government affairs and social impact as one portfolio, with a separate Chief People Officer beneath it.

9. Carrie Palin

   SVP and Chief Marketing Officer

10. Ammar Maraqa

    SVP and Chief Strategy Officer — Shown with no reports: Cisco publishes the seat but not what sits under it.

11. Steve Clayton

    SVP and Chief Communications Officer

12. Eyal Dagan

    EVP, Strategic Projects — An executive-level seat whose remit Cisco does not describe publicly, so it is drawn without a team.

13. Kamal Hathi

    SVP and General Manager, Splunk — Placement under the Chief Product Officer is inferred from the published remit; Cisco states no reporting line for it.

14. Tom Gillis

    SVP and General Manager, Infrastructure & Security Group — Runs the largest of the product business units; the reporting line shown is inferred from title and remit rather than stated.

How this structure supports the business

The strategy Cisco states in its own filings — tie networking, security, collaboration and observability more tightly together and push AI through all of them — is not achievable across four independently governed divisions. Putting every product line under one executive makes cross-portfolio integration a decision inside one organization rather than a negotiation between four, which is the point of the fiscal 2025 consolidation.

The geographic layer earns its place on the go-to-market side rather than the accounting one. A single worldwide sales organization lets Cisco run one global partner and channel model, while theatre presidents own local coverage, regulation and the largest accounts. Because the segments carry no allocated cost, the structure never invites a theatre to optimize its own margin at the portfolio's expense.

Keeping the executive team small and the designated officer group smaller still is what lets Cisco reorganize as often as it has — restructuring plans in fiscal 2023, 2024 and 2025, the last covering about 7% of the workforce — without touching its legal architecture or its segment reporting. The people move; the frame stays.

Advantages and disadvantages

One Chief Product Officer can force integration across networking, security, collaboration and observability, which no amount of coordination between separate divisions reliably produces.

It puts the roadmap for a $57 billion portfolio in one executive's queue. Business units compete for a single person's attention, and the seat is an obvious point of concentration if it turns over.

Geographic segments plus one worldwide sales organization give each theatre an unambiguous revenue number and let Cisco operate a single global partner and channel model instead of renegotiating it region by region.

Because R&D, sales and marketing and administrative costs are never allocated to segments, no geography carries a full P&L. Regional profitability is invisible even internally, and regional cost discipline has nothing to bite on.

Customer Experience as a CEO-level peer of sales protects renewals, adoption and services from being subordinated to new bookings — which matters when 56% of revenue is subscription.

Ownership of the customer relationship is split across two executives, so account coverage, the renewal motion and services delivery need standing cross-functional coordination that a single owner would not.

Absorbing acquisitions as product organizations rather than as governed subsidiaries keeps one legal entity, one segment structure and one set of corporate functions no matter how much Cisco buys.

Splunk shows the cost: it still runs a parallel leadership spine for sales, platform, security and services years after closing, so the acquired organization is neither independent nor fully merged.

Interesting facts

• Cisco's reportable segments are geographies rather than products, and deliberately shallow: the CEO is the chief operating decision maker, segments are measured only on revenue and segment gross margin, and R&D, sales and marketing and administrative expenses are not allocated to any of them.
• For a company of roughly 86,200 people the legally designated leadership circle is six — the number of Section 16 executive officers in the 2025 proxy — against a twelve-person executive leadership team and around a hundred further senior leaders listed publicly beneath it.
• All product and engineering was consolidated under one executive during fiscal 2025, in two steps: EVP and Chief Product Officer first, then President and Chief Product Officer, absorbing business groups that had reported separately to the CEO.
• Cisco has restructured in three consecutive fiscal years — $670 million in FY2023, $654 million in FY2024, and about 7% of the global workforce in FY2025 — each framed as redeploying people into AI, cloud and security rather than as cost reduction alone.
• The board pairs a combined Chair and CEO with a lead independent director who is paid a premium for the role, and runs four standing committees including an unusual Public Policy Committee; the former standing Acquisition and Finance Committees have been retired despite Cisco being one of technology's most acquisitive companies.
• HR, government affairs and social impact are one executive portfolio rather than three, held by the Chief People, Policy & Purpose Officer, with a separate Chief People Officer listed among senior leaders beneath that seat.

Frequently asked questions

What type of organizational structure does Cisco use?

A functional structure with a geographic reporting overlay. Product and engineering sit under one Chief Product Officer, sales under one Chief Sales Officer, and the corporate functions report directly to the CEO. The Americas, EMEA and APJC segments are a go-to-market and reporting lens layered over that, not standalone divisions.

Who reports directly to Cisco's CEO?

The executive leadership team: the President and Chief Product Officer, the CFO, the Chief Sales Officer, and the heads of Customer Experience, Operations, Legal, People, Marketing, Strategy, Communications and strategic projects. Cisco publishes the team but states no reporting lines below it, so everything under that first ring is inferred from published remits.

Are Cisco's business segments run as divisions?

No. The FY2025 10-K identifies the CEO as the chief operating decision maker and reports Americas, EMEA and APJC on revenue and segment gross margin only. R&D, sales and marketing and administrative costs are not allocated to segments, so no geography owns a full profit and loss.

How is Splunk organized inside Cisco?

As a product business unit with its own general manager, but with more of its own leadership retained than a fully merged acquisition would keep. Cisco's senior-leader listing still shows separate Splunk leaders for sales, platform, security, observability and services, which is why the chart shows the Splunk general manager and stops there.

Can I edit this Cisco org chart?

Yes. Open it as your own chart and it becomes an ordinary QueryChart org chart — rename people, change titles, add or remove reports. It is a reasonable starting point if you are modelling a central product organization against regional sales theatres.

Use this org chart template

Open Cisco's structure as an editable org chart, then swap in your own product organization and sales theatres to see how the matrix looks at your size.

Open this org chart as your own