This is Kamla Bhatt; today my guest is Padmasree Warrior who is the Chief Technology Officer at Cisco Systems. Padma, as she is known, joined Motorola in 1984 and worked there until she left the company to join CISCO in December of 2007. While at Motorola, she was the CTO and at one point had a budget of over $3 billion for her R&D efforts. Padma sits on the boards of various organizations and serves as a mentor in the State Department’s International Women’s Mentoring Partnership. Welcome to the show Padma.
Padmasree: Thank you Kamla. It is my pleasure to be here.
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Kamla: What does technology mean to you?
Padmasree: Technology means a lot of things for me. Firstly, it is a passion for me and I’ve been interested in the science and technology since I was a little child. But fundamentally if you look at the role of technology and society, it is all about providing us as human beings with a way to do things that will improve our lifestyle. Whether it’s how we work, how we live, or how we even play, or entertain ourselves. So it has a foundational role in almost every aspect of life.
Kamla: What has been the first year for you like at CISCO?
Padmasree: It has been great year actually, it’s gone by so quickly; it has actually only been 10 months since I got here. I actually joined Cisco in March, I left Motorola in November. I think culturally the transition has gone so well. It has exceeded all of my expectations. Cisco is a great place to work. People here have a “can do” attitude, there’s a lot of expertise and it’s truly a global company, which are the things that I enjoy being a part of.
Kamla: This is a question that many people have in their mind. What does a Chief Technology Officer do in a big company like Cisco?
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