Daisy Chittilapilly to take over as president of Cisco India and SAARC

San Jose, California headquartered information technology (IT) and networking giant Cisco has announced the appointment of Daisy Chittilapilly as the president of India and SAARC. 

 She will be starting on the new role from August 1, 2021.

Chittilapilly will be taking over from Sameer Garde who served as the president of Cisco India for four years and announced his plans of stepping down in March.

In her new role, she will be responsible for strategy and sales, operations and investments to drive Cisco’s long-term growth in the region.

Having worked at Cisco for 17 years, the alumnus of XLRI Jamshedpur was the managing director for Cisco’s digital transformation office till recently, in addition to being the leader of software and services sales, where she worked to accelerate Cisco’s transition to software and subscription based offerings. Chittilapilly has 25 years of experience in the technology industry and started out with Wipro in 1995 where she held multiple sales management roles.

“In today’s digital and cloud-first world, Cisco’s leadership across networking, cybersecurity, and collaboration put us at the forefront of helping business with their digital transformation and unlocking a new era of growth,” Chittilapilly  said.

“I am excited about the possibilities we can shape for India's people and businesses, and I look forward to working closely with our customers, partners, communities, and the government to bring these possibilities to life," she added.  

Dave West, president of Cisco Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China said that the appointment comes at a time when the company is looking at India and SAARC markets for innovation and growth. “With businesses across the region looking to capture the economic rebound, her wealth of experience and knowledge in digitally enabling organizations and developing Cisco's go-to-market strategies around software and services will help propel Cisco, our customers, and partners to the forefront of the digital economy,” West said.

Cisco has recently partnered with Vodafone Idea Limited to automate network support for its 4G offering and support 5G use cases of the telco in future. In late 2020, Cisco had announced a new digital platform and said it will be consolidating its partner programmes into a single unit over a period of 12-18 months.