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Cisco Systems CTO Padmasree Warrior reportedly will join the executive exodus in July once Chuck Robbins takes over as the company’s new CEO.
News site Re/code cited several unnamed sources who said that Warrior, who has been Cisco’s chief technology officer since 2008, coming from Motorola where she held the same position, will be leaving. She saw her position expand in 2012 when she also was named the company’s chief strategy officer.
The report comes on the same day that Robbins, who will replace longtime CEO John Chambers July 26, announced that company presidents Rob Lloyd—once considered the favorite to succeed Chambers—and Gary Moore were resigning their positions with the company, departing on July 25.
The sources told Re/code that it was unclear whether Warrior would be moving into an executive position with another company, though some people said one option is joining the boards of directors for other organizations. She already is on the board of both online collaboration vendor Box and clothing retailer The Gap. Another option could be becoming a partner at a venture capital firm.
According to Business Insider, there were reports in January that Warrior was considering leaving Cisco, though company officials denied the rumors.
Cisco officials have declined to comment on the report regarding Warrior.
The decision on who would replace Chambers, who spent two decades as Cisco’s CEO, spanned years, with a number of company executives being considered along with several outside candidates. Lloyd’s promotion in 2012 to president of development and sales was seen by industry observers as an indication that he was being groomed as Chambers’ successor, particularly since the position touched on everything from sales to engineering. Lloyd has been with Cisco for 21 years.
Moore, a 14-year-veteran, and Warrior also were considered contenders for the position.
However, Chambers and the board of directors announced Robbins, currently senior vice president of worldwide operations, as the new CEO May 4. Chambers at the time called Robbins “a very strong leader” and that “our next CEO needs to thrive in a highly dynamic environment, to be capable of accelerating what is working very well for Cisco, and disrupting what needs to change. Chuck is unique in his ability to translate vision and strategy into world-class execution, bringing together teams and ecosystems to drive results.”
In his post on the company blog June 1, Robbins said the departures of Lloyd and Moore were part of a larger effort to streamline the operations and management at Cisco, which is continuing to grow beyond its networking roots and become more of an enterprise IT solutions and services provider as the industry becomes more mobile and software-defined, and embraces the cloud.
“Going forward, we will move to a flatter leadership team designed for the speed, innovation and execution that is required of us over the next decade,” Robbins wrote.
He also said he will introduce his new organizational structure and leadership team within two weeks, adding that “this simplified structure will allow us to move with speed to accelerate our innovation and help our customers transform in the digital age.”