Ravi Namboori Cisco Evangelist: Story of Cisco’s pioneer - John T. Chambers
- ravinambooricisco
- Oct 25, 2014
- 2 min read
When he joined as a regular salesman at IBM in 1976, little did people know that John T. Chambers would go on to become the chief executive the world’s largest networking company Cisco.
A visionary, Chambers was quoted as saying that at IBM he learnt what one ought not to do. Despite not having a degree in engineering he distinguished himself. Seven years later, he shifted to Wang Laboratories. There too, he rose up the ranks to become the leader of the company’s Asian sales team.
Although people were apprehensive about this role of his, he did not disappoint. Wangs Labs, however, suffered a blow when its Chinese American founder An Wang died in 1990. He was the executive vice-president of the company, whose fortunes were plummeting. This prompted him to leave this company and search for another job. As luck would have have it, the then Cisco president John Morgridge opted to make Chambers to the senior vice president of Cisco’s Worldwide Operations in 1990 fall.
Chambers proved his mettle here too. The year 1993 saw Cisco make its first acquisition, when it took over Cresendo Communications, a switch company.
In 1995, Chambers was made the CEO of Cisco. The company never looked back since, even as the other IT companies were feeling the heat of the dot-com bust of 2000. It acquired more switching companies, such as Lightstream, Kalpana, and Grand Junction.
Cisco, today, is the leader in network security market with a 32% market share. It employs around 72,000 persons with revenues of over $12 billion for the first quarter of 2015. It also designed advertising campaign for the Internet of Everything in 2013.
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