Cisco Systems chief strategy officer Ned Hooper, who led the $5 billion bid for NDS and other major acquisitions, is leaving the company to form an investment firm, Cisco said Tuesday.
With Hooper's departure, chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior will be promoted to Cisco's chief technology and strategy officer, responsible for identifying customer and industry transitions and determining Cisco's strategy to address them.
Hooper, a 13-year veteran of Cisco, "pioneered the model for large-scale M&A at Cisco and drove significant transactions for the company such as Tandberg, WebEx, Airespace, Starent and NDS," Cisco CEO John Chambers and chief operating officer Gary Moore wrote in a blog post.
Hooper joined Cisco in 1997 through the acquisition of Lightspeed International, where he was director of business development.
In other recent executive changes, Pankaj Patel, general manager of Cisco's service provider business unit, will also take over the company's engineering organization. "Over the past year as the co-leader of engineering, Pankaj has increased his involvement in Cisco's enterprise business, as the intersection points between service provider and enterprise come closer together," Chambers and Moore said.
In addition, Cisco moved Edzard Overbeek from senior VP of the Asia-Pacific-Japan region to head of global services and Bruce Klein from senior VP of public sector sales to the head of Cisco's worldwide partner organization.
"Over the past year, we have refocused our engineering organization for agility, better decision making, and a renewed focus on innovation," Chambers and Moore wrote.
