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Speakers

Meet the WebexOne 2025 speakers including luminaries, industry experts, Cisco executives, AI visionaries, Webex customers, and more.

*Additional speakers to be announced soon. All speakers subject to change.

  • Matthew McConaughey

    Academy Award-Winning Actor, Bestselling Author, and Philanthropist

    Academy Award-winning actor, New York Times bestselling author, and philanthropist Matthew McConaughey is a force of nature both onscreen and in business. He has appeared in over 40 feature films that have grossed over $1B. McConaughey’s first book, Greenlights, became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller and has sold over 3M copies worldwide. His second book, a children’ book titled Just Because, also debuted as an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. In 2019, McConaughey became a professor of practice at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as Minister of Culture/M.O.C. for the University of Texas and the City of Austin. McConaughey is co-owner of The Austin FC Soccer Club, co-creator of his favorite bourbon, Wild Turkey Longbranch, and co-founder of tequila brand Pantalones. McConaughey is heralded for his constant career reinvention, inspiring audiences globally to chase their dreams. An outspoken advocate for public education, McConaughey founded the just keep livin’ Foundation to impart students with the tools to lead active lives and make healthy choices for a better future through after school fitness programs. McConaughey has spoken on empowerment, education, and achievement to AMC, Credit Suisse, the Texas Apartment Association, and many more. In engagements equally empowering and entertaining, McConaughey shares lessons from his life and career, the impact of his philanthropic efforts, and the importance of following passion.

  • CarShield

    Steve Proetz

    Founder, President and COO

    Steve Proetz is a Founder, President and COO of CarShield, a leading provider in vehicle service protection. With over two decades of leadership at CarShield, Steve has played a pivotal role in scaling the company's operations and shaping its customer-first approach. He oversees critical business functions including sales, customer service, payment processing, presales, IT, and data development. A seasoned executive and visionary entrepreneur, Steve brings deep operational expertise and a commitment to innovation in customer experience. His insights into scaling service-driven businesses and leading through disruption make him a compelling voice on business growth, operational excellence, and customer-centric strategy.

  • Veridian Credit Union

    Christi Hulme

    VP of Member Contact Center

    Christi Hulme is the Vice President of the Member Contact Center at Veridian Credit Union. In her role, Christi leads initiatives that elevate both member and employee experiences, championing new technologies to support Veridian’s position as a technology-first credit union. She oversees multiple service channels, ensuring Veridian meets members where they are—delivering service that is accessible, personal, and efficient. With over 30 years in the financial services industry and more than two decades in leadership, Christi brings deep operational expertise and a strategic mindset. For the past six years, she has focused on shaping the Contact Center’s strategic vision, aligning it with evolving member expectations and business goals. Christi specializes in digital transformation, with an emphasis on member journey mapping, system design, and leveraging technology to empower self-service—while also deepening relationships through meaningful product and service interactions. She holds a degree in Business Administration and is passionate about creating meaningful member connections and equipping teams with the tools they need to deliver exceptional experiences.

  • Topgolf

    Doug Klausen

    Director of Global Technology Delivery

    Coming Soon!

  • GetixHealth

    Monty Tan

    VP of Infrastructure

    Monty is a graduate of The University of Texas at El Paso, holding a pre-med focused Bachelor of Science degree. His extensive background spans various industries, including healthcare, education, entertainment and energy, equipping him with a unique perspective on the intersection of technology and organizational growth. A dynamic leader, Monty shares insights on topics such as digital transformation, infrastructure resilience, and the evolving role of technology in modern enterprises. His practical experience and forward-thinking approach make him a valuable voice for audiences seeking to navigate the complexities of today's technological landscape.

  • AccentCare

    Sonu Singh

    AVP Infrastructure and Architecture Engineering

    Sonu Singh is the AVP of Infrastructure Architecture & Engineering at AccentCare, where he leads digital transformation in unified communications and AI in post-acute care. With over 20 years of experience in healthcare IT, he specializes in designing secure, HIPAA-compliant solutions, modernizing telephony with Cisco Webex, deploying cloud contact centers, and integrating AI agents to automate critical workflows. Recently, Sonu collaborated with clinical and operations teams to incorporate Webex AI into AccentCare’s after-hours answering service, allowing virtual assistants to triage calls, generate real-time transcripts, and escalate urgent patient issues.

  • Kennedy Space Center

    Pedro Oñoro

    IT Director

    As the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex IT Director, Pedro oversees the strategic technology of all the systems and network architecture. With a background in both networking and systems engineering, he ensures a seamless operation of the IT infrastructure. His extensive experience in graphic design, app, and web development empowers him to develop innovative tools tailored to streamline the business operation and deliver cutting-edge solutions. Through the creation of immersive interactive experiences, setting new standards for innovation in the hospitality industry. Pedro is passionate about bringing innovative and exciting technologies to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and enhance the guest experience.

  • M&T Bank

    Bill Sheff

    SVP Collaboration Engineering Manager

    Bill Sheff is the Senior Vice President and Engineering Manager for Collaboration Technologies at M&T Bank. He leads a team focused on developing and maintaining voice and video communication solutions, while also serving as the strategic product owner for Cisco technologies. With a background in healthcare marketing and collaboration tech, Bill is committed to delivering user-friendly, innovative solutions that enhance the hybrid work experience. He actively engages with stakeholders to align technology with business needs. Bill holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Education, recently earned his MBA from the University at Buffalo, and is a proud graduate of M&T's Rising Leader Development Program.

  • Axis Capital

    Mike Grimaldi

    Head of End User Services

    Coming Soon!

  • Conagra

    Jeff Heldt

    Solutions Architect - Collaboration

    Jeff Heldt is a dedicated solutions architect focused on video collaboration. Passionate about designing and delivering modern, contemporary workspaces that provide a rich user experience across multiple conferencing platforms and facilitate a highly productive, hybrid collaboration. With nearly 30 years of IT industry experience, Jeff has a 25-year career at Conagra Brands, a major food company with a rich heritage of making great food and iconic brands for over 100 years. Since 2012, Jeff has been instrumental in designing and delivering collaboration technology solutions to Conagra Brands’ knowledge workers in six major locations across North America. Starting with a handful of TelePresence rooms and the Webex meeting platform, Conagra’s capabilities have now grown to over 250+ Room Series video conferencing workspaces, ranging from personal endpoints and huddle-room systems to large-capacity, multi-screen meeting rooms. Leveraging Cisco’s cloud-based video platform for device and workspace registration, management, and analytics, Jeff is able to provide Conagra Brands a spectrum of video collaboration solutions—from turn-key conference rooms to custom-integrated training rooms and 150-seat auditorium for hybrid training and townhall webcasting events.

  • BancFirst

    Patrick Cornish

    Senior Network Engineer

    I’m excited to be a speaker at WebexOne! I’ve spent the last eight years at BancFirst, where I design, research, and architect customer experience solutions, working directly with our executives to bring those innovations to life to curate an experience and customer journey tailored to our customer. Before my time at BancFirst, I was a senior regional network engineer for the Defense Logistics Agency, where I held a Top Secret security clearance and managed projects from coast to coast and beyond. I’ve also had the pleasure of working with Presidio Solutions and gaining partner level expertise in data center, wireless technologies and telecommunications. On a personal note, I’m happily married to my wife, Ashley going on 10 years, and we have three amazing kids. Our oldest is 19 and attending the University of Illinois, where she plays softball. We also have a 14-year-old getting ready to start high school and an 8-year-old heading into second grade.

  • Brightli

    Robert Bibey

    Voice Engineer

    Robert Bibey brings a unique and dynamic perspective to IT, having spent nearly two decades in the entertainment industry before boldly pivoting into technology. Since entering the IT field in 2014-turning a mobile device repair hobby into a profession-Robert has demonstrated a clear commitment to continuous learning and adaptability. Starting as a help desk technician while simultaneously continuing the mobile repair passion, he progressed to an analyst role in 2019 and quickly advanced to Network Administrator reponsible for print management and telephony administration in 2020. Shortly after, despite having no prior voice design or engineering experience, Robert led his organization's ambitious migration from on-premises Cisco CM and UCCX to Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center. Today, he serves as the sole Voice Engineer at Brightli. At Brightli, Robert drives innovation in voice architecture and collaboration technologies, bringing passion, hands-on expertise, and real-world insight to every solution. His story is one of reinvention, resilience, and results-making him a compelling voice in modern enterprise communication.

  • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

    Dan Harren

    Director, Digital Acceleration and Initiatives

    Dan Harren is the Director of Digital Acceleration & Initiatives at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario. In this role, he leads a portfolio of high impact, regional and pan Canadian projects designed to modernize CAMH’s digital infrastructure, drive rapid technology adoption and embed data driven solutions across clinical and operational settings not just within CAMH but outside our doors as well. Dan has led a number of large-scale IT projects including the migration of CAMH’s network and infrastructure to the cloud, migrating CAMH’s clinical EMR to the cloud, advanced integrated care initiatives to improve patients’ physical and mental health outcomes, and has been a key leader supporting the deployment of tools and technologies to embed Measurement Based Care at our hospital. Dan led the rollout of the technology stack required to deploy the 9 8 8 Suicide Crisis Hotline which is a national service serving Canadians in crisis via phone or text. Dan’s team has recently begun the work to build and deploy a pan-Canadian Integrated Youth Services (IYS) federated data platform which will serve Youth, Research, and Youth Services across Canada. Dan is passionate about leveraging emerging technologies to enhance access, quality and efficiency in mental health care.

  • USI Insurance

    Ed Reynolds

    IT Manager - Unified Communications

    Ed Reynolds is an experienced IT Infrastructure Manager with a strong track record of leading enterprise-scale technology operations and infrastructure initiatives. With a focus on reliability, scalability, and security, Ed collaborates closely with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless IT service delivery and continuous improvement. Known for a hands-on leadership style and a deep understanding of core voice and Unified communications systems, Ed plays a key role in driving Collaboration technology across the enterprise. In 2023, USI was nominated for two Webex Customer Awards. In 2024, the team was honored at WebexOne with the Webex Customer Award for AI Innovator: Hybrid Work, recognizing their forward-thinking approach to infrastructure and collaboration technologies.

  • Yale University

    Greg Buckless

    Associate Director of Telco Engineering

    With over 20 years of experience in telecommunications, Greg has focused on improving communication solutions within the healthcare and higher education sectors, including a distinctive contract in Antarctica. He currently oversees voice and contact center services for more than 25,000 users at Yale University, where he has effectively transitioned thousands of users to the Webex Calling platform. His leadership in Cloud Calling was recognized with the 2024 WebexOne award.

  • City of Phoenix

    Ian Trollope

    Deputy CIO Enterprise Telecommunications Services

    Ian Trollope, Deputy CIO Enterprise Telecommunications Services for the City of Phoenix oversees the City's unified communications and contact center systems, the enterprise network, and layer-1 inside and outside plant infrastructure. He has provided innovative communications solutions to customers and residents for over 20 years. During the pandemic he led an effort to deploy over 300 video systems in a six week period to enable hybrid work for City of Phoenix employees.

  • Novuna

    Natalia Woloseckyj-Jones

    IT Infrastructure Manager

    With 16 years of dedicated service at Novuna (formerly Hitachi Capital), Natalia Woloseckyj-Jones has built a remarkable career path, from her beginnings as a Network Analyst to her current leadership role overseeing the IT Infrastructure landscape. Driven by a passion for technology and a commitment to lifelong learning, Natalia has consistently turned challenges into opportunities, advancing through key roles in networking and unified communications. Her journey reflects not only technical excellence but also a deep-seated belief in collaboration, mentorship, and resilience. Supported by a strong network of peers and leaders, Natalia has become a respected and trusted voice in IT infrastructure, known for her ability to lead with clarity, empathy, and strategic vision. Today, she draws on a wealth of hands-on experience and leadership insight to inspire others, sharing lessons from a career shaped by adaptability, relationship-building, and the courage to step outside of her comfort zone. Natalia's story serves as a powerful example of how determination and curiosity can drive meaningful, long-term success in the ever-evolving world of technology.

  • CarShield

    Nick Curran

    Enterprise Architect

    Nick Curran is the Enterprise Architect at CarShield, where he has been a cornerstone of the company’s technological evolution for nearly two decades. With deep expertise in IT infrastructure, contact center management, and enterprise systems, Nick currently oversees the Webex Contact Center platform and drives innovation across the IT department. Throughout his 20-year tenure at CarShield, Nick has led the development and optimization of the organization’s phone systems and contact center technologies, adapting them to meet the needs of a fast-scaling customer base. His current focus is on leveraging AI capabilities within Webex Contact Center to improve customer interactions, operational efficiency, and data-driven decision-making. As a long-time leader who has grown with the company, Nick brings practical insight into the real-world application of AI in complex enterprise environments.

  • Fifth Third Bank

    Paul Reynolds

    Director Digital Workplace Engineering

    Paul Reynolds is a seasoned technology leader with over 30 years of experience in desktop operating systems, software deployment, and AV infrastructure. Throughout his career, he has successfully delivered numerous challenging and rewarding projects, demonstrating expertise and innovation in the infrastructure space. Currently, they hold the position of Director Digital Workplace Engineering at Fifth Third Bank, where they continue to drive technological advancements. Outside of work, Paul enjoys spending quality time with his family, including his wife and four adult sons. They are passionate about boating and attending sporting events.

  • Dutch Government

    Sijbren Beukenkamp

    Solution Architect and Consultant

    Sijbren Beukenkamp is an experienced Solution Architect contracted by the Dutch Government, where he is part of the team responsible for architecting, developing, and maintaining a Webex-based government-wide video meeting proposition. He is also an active member of the Webex Insider Expert and Cisco Insider Champion communities, where he collaborates closely with peers, shares knowledge, and contributes to the advancement of Cisco's collaboration and Webex portfolio.

  • GetixHealth

    David Stuart

    CTO/CISO

    David Stuart has over twenty years of experience in Information Technology for Revenue Cycle Management solutions, and proudly serves as GetixHealth's Chief Technology Officer. He leads a high-performing team which embraces innovative trends and consistently adapts to new technologies and situations. David oversees all technical aspects of information technology services and leads GeixHealth’s long-term technology vision.

  • County of Ventura California

    Jeff Wilby

    Chief - ITSD Telecommunications

    I have 25 years serving the constituents of Ventura County. As Chief of Telecommunications for the County of Ventura one of my roles is to ensure my department is able to deliver reliable unified communications solutions that not only meet organizational strategic initiatives but also successfully solve ever changing business needs of the agencies we serve.

  • Springfield Clinic

    Molly Colwell

    Manager, Enterprise Voice & Telecommunications

    Coming soon

  • Brink’s Inc

    Paul Brookshire

    Sr. Voice Engineer

    With over 30 years of experience in voice technology, I’ve had the opportunity to grow alongside the evolution of enterprise communications—starting with Nortel, moving through Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM), and now leading the transition to Webex Calling. As the Senior Voice Engineer at Brink’s Inc., I recently oversaw the successful migration of over 190 U.S. locations to Webex Calling without service interruption, while also streamlining operations across Canada, LATAM, and other global regions. Outside of work, I’m a proud family man with six children and 16 grandchildren. Balancing a large family and a fast-paced career has taught me the value of communication, resilience, and adaptability—skills that have served me well throughout this journey in voice transformation.

  • CDW

    Brad Clarke

    Team Lead Contact Center

    Brad is an accomplished leader with more than 25 years of combined delivery, sales, and support of contact center solu-tions within a wide-range indus-tries such as Health Care, Bank-ing, Government, Insurance, Utilities, and many more. During Brad’s 19 years with CDWhe has focused on enterprise sized engagements including multiple large voice and contact center, multi-vendor integrations. He is also a member of CDW’s CX Leadership team, which provides direction and assists with the development of CDW’s best practices.

  • Uniting NSW.ACT

    Craig Mendel

    Senior Manager, IT Customer Experience

    Craig Mendel is a seasoned professional whose two-decade journey—spanning hospitality, financial services, insurance, and IT leadership—reflects a rare blend of cross-industry versatility and operational excellence. With over 10 years in five-star hotel management within the Intercontinental Hotels Group, Craig perfected world-class service delivery. He then transitioned to the complex worlds of financial services, insurance, and aged-care, contributing to Australian Unity, TAL, and MLC Life Insurance, and tackling roles at CommSec, CBA (group culture, financial markets, asset finance), and Tyro Payments. Across these roles, he has driven performance in sales, account management, contact centres, and operational leadership. Currently at Uniting (NSW/ACT), Craig leads the organisation’s contact centre platform, IT service management, IT service operations, and IT customer service—empowering teams and customers through seamless and resilient technology-enabled service delivery. Beyond the corporate world, Craig is a devoted father of six, a volunteer surf lifesaver patrolling the Northern Beaches of Sydney, and a passionate soccer and cricket coach—bringing teamwork, compassion, and community spirit to every facet of his life.

  • Carnival Cruise Line

    Marcus Labra

    Senior Manager, Contact Center Applications & Strategic Initiatives

    Working with Senior Management to oversee new and existing software for the contact center. This includes proof of concept, review of business requirements, testing, and deploying software to production. Skilled in Requirement Analysis, testing, working with Technical teams, Sales, and Customer Service. Managing applications to include Siebel, Webex Connect, Oracle Service Cloud, Eloqua, Medallia and CTI integration. My goals are to ensure the business is meeting KPI's for Sales and Service with the applications that further our progress.

  • CallTower

    William Rubio

    Chief Revenue Officer

    William Rubio, Chief Revenue Officer at CallTower, showcases over 25 years of expertise in global telecommunications, IT, Cloud industry and M&A space. Known for his strategic leadership, he has enhanced CallTower's industry position through innovative approaches to UCaaS, CCaaS, and Collaboration sectors. His career highlights include notable revenue growth in various markets, forecasting industry trends, and fostering alliances. With proficiency in VoIP, Cloud solutions, and IT operations, William is passionate about forging robust partnerships and delivering quality solutions.

  • HD Supply

    Emil DiMotta

    Vice President of Information Technology & Operations

    Emil DiMotta brings over three decades of strategic leadership in IT infrastructure, cloud migration, SAP, and enterprise architecture. As Vice President of Information Technology & Operations at HD Supply, he spearheads transformative initiatives in cloud-native technologies, DevOps, and digital integration, optimizing operational efficiencies and driving business growth. Emil’s expertise lies in orchestrating large-scale IT modernizations and delivering robust, scalable solutions that align with organizational objectives. With a passion for innovation and operational excellence, he continues to drive impactful change across the enterprise.

  • Lowes

    Brady Freese

    Lead AV Infrastructure Engineer

    Brady Freese Lead AV Engineer, Lowe’s Brady Freese is a 30-year veteran of the audiovisual industry, with experience ranging from live production and large-scale arenas to corporate offices and custom home installations. A former business owner and long-time AV contractor, Brady has held roles from lead installer to project manager before becoming Lead AV Engineer at Lowe’s in 2021. He spearheaded the redesign and completion of Lowe’s 24-story Tech Hub in Charlotte, delivered in 2022, and now leads AV modernization efforts in partnership with Cisco.

  • Mividas

    Peter Klein

    Commercial Director

    In roles spanning Cisco CCIE, Tandberg specialist, product manager and now Commercial Director at Mividas, I’ve spent two decades helping mission-critical environments, government and enterprises collaborate without compromise. At WebexOne, I’ll share how to make complex hybrid meetings effortless, secure and trusted.

  • TTEC Digital

    Cliff Martin

    Executive Director of CX Transformation

    Core competency areas are Customer Operations, CX Design, CX Technology Strategy, Finance Operations, Global Shared Services and Change Implementation. Leveraging 25 years of progressive leadership experience, Cliff is a passionate voice for the brand, its customers, and the fusion of technology and process to deliver amazing customer experiences. He specializes in the rapid assessments and action plans required to launch new strategies or engineer the turn-around of struggling organizations. Cliff works with companies to develop brand-specific customer journeys, integrate them with a technology-enabled contact center enterprise, and then leverages those contact centers to support and grow the sales and customer loyalty of the company. Cliff has domestic and international contact center strategy, implementation, and operations execution experience in: Retail, e-commerce, Technology, Luxury Brands, Insurance, Health Care, Finance, Consumer Credit, and Telecommunications.

  • Valeris

    Tommy Walker

    VP of Communications Technologies

    Tommy Walker is a contact center and customer experience strategist at Valeris. He helps design and deliver innovative customer experience solutions to help life sciences companies deliver solutions that enhance patient lives. Tommy attended Miami University and began his career as a Marine Officer, where he achieved the rank of Captain. After leaving the Marine Corps, he obtained an MBA from NC State University and joined Valeris (then TrialCard) in 2010. Tommy brings more than a decade of experience with Cisco’s Collaboration product portfolio. In 2011, he was a part of the core project team responsible for the selection, implementation and launch of Unified CCE as the company's first contact center platform. Since then, he’s overseen migrations from Unified CCE to Webex CCE, and from Webex CCE to Webex Contact Center on a journey to leverage technology through AI to support the growing complexity of the life sciences market. Tommy is the proud father of Jack (17), Grady (15) and Ella (10) and devoted husband of more than 20 years to his wife Leigh. When he is not at a ballfield or in a gym watching one of his children compete, he enjoys Cleveland Guardians baseball, Carolina Hurricanes hockey, NC barbecue, bourbon and relaxing at the beach.

  • AudioCodes

    Mitchell Hershkowitz

    Global Service Integrator, Channel Sales Director

    Mitchell Hershkowitz is the GSI Channel Sales Director at AudioCodes, bringing over 25 years of experience leading partnerships and sales initiatives for global systems integrators. He has worked for industry leaders including Planetary Networks, Dimension Data, NTT, and Computacenter, specializing in delivering innovative unified communications and collaboration solutions. Based in Alpharetta, Georgia, Mitchell is known for his ability to align technology strategies with business outcomes to drive measurable success.

  • Verint

    Kelly Koelliker

    Vice President, Content Marketing

    Kelly Koelliker is the Vice President of Content Marketing at Verint with a focus on contact center workforce engagement solutions. With more than 20 years of marketing and sales experience, her expertise in the customer experience industry covers such fast-evolving categories as CCaaS, AI, and analytics.

  • WWT

    Brandon Echele

    Director, Collaboration & Workforce AI

    Brandon has more than 25 years of Voice and Video technology experience including business development, engineering and implementation. As Director of Collaboration and Workforce AI he is responsible for the collaboration technologies in WWT’s portfolio that include UCaaS and video conferencing from both Cisco, Microsoft and Zoom, digital signage and room scheduling applications. Brandon uses his lengthy enterprise experience to focus on how customer tools affect the experiences of their employees and their customers.

  • AudioCodes

    Roy Wizeman

    Director of UCaaS Platform and Solutions

    Roy Wizeman serves as AudioCodes’ Director of UCaaS Platform and Solutions, leading global initiatives to advance enterprise-grade Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS). With more than 15 years in the IT industry and over four years at AudioCodes, Roy brings extensive experience as CTO, R&D Manager, and in complex systems and product management. He drives the development of scalable platforms that enable service providers and resellers to deliver seamless voice connectivity and lifecycle management. His work spans automated onboarding, PSTN connectivity, and secure voice services, supporting platforms such as Microsoft, Webex, and Zoom.

  • Metrigy

    Irwin Lazar

    President & Principal Analyst

    Irwin Lazar President and Principal Analyst Research Leader: Workplace Collaboration Primary Focus Areas: Administration and Performance Management, AI Copilots and Virtual Assistants, Connected Workspace, Employee Experience, Hybrid Work, Security and Compliance, SIP Trunking & PSTN Access, Team Collaboration, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, Workspace Management Other Areas of Expertise: Network Communications and Services, Mobility and Mobile Security, Contact Center, and Customer Experience Irwin Lazar develops and manages research projects, conducts and analyzes primary research, and advises enterprise and vendor clients on technology strategy, adoption, and business metrics. Irwin is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging workplace collaboration technologies and services, covering enterprise communications and collaboration as an industry analyst for over 25 years. A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and sought-after speaker and author, Irwin is a blogger for NoJitter.com and contributor to SearchUnifiedCommunications.com. He writes on workplace collaboration topics, including unified communications, video conferencing, 911, operations, security, and more. He is a frequent resource for the business and trade press and is a regular speaker at events such as Enterprise Connect, InfoComm, and UCX-London. In 2017 he was recognized as an Emerging Technologies Fellow by the IMCCA and InfoComm. Irwin has a background in IP network and security architecture, design, and operations; he advised global organizations and held direct operational responsibility for worldwide voice and data networks. Irwin holds an MBA from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management Information Systems from Radford University, where he received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Reserve, Ordnance Corps. Outside of Metrigy, Irwin has been a Scouting leader for almost 20 years, serving in a variety of roles. He is also active in the American Legion.

  • Metric Sherpa

    Nate Brown

    Head of Education and Enablement

    Nate Brown loves two things very much...customer experience and community. Fortunately, these concepts go hand-in-hand! As a community builder, Nate co-founded CX Accelerator in 2018. Quickly growing to well over four thousand members, this vibrant collection of CX leaders is helping one another to maximize their career and accomplish remarkable things in service to others. Nate also heads up Education and Enablement for Metric Sherpa, a research firm helping organizations to transform customer interactions. When not "CX'ing, Brown is a competitive disc golfer, certified pickleball instructor, husband, and a 2X girl dad.

  • Metrigy

    Robin Gareiss

    CEO and Principal Analyst

    Research Leader: Customer Experience, Artificial Intelligence Primary Focus Areas: Artificial intelligence, contact center, customer success analytics, workforce engagement management, CRM, business case development, and cost/ROI modeling Other Areas of Expertise: CPaaS, Unified Communications and Collaboration, digital workplace, custom research projects, and RFP development and analysis. Robin Gareiss is CEO and Principal Analyst at Metrigy, where she oversees research product development, conducts primary research, and advises leading enterprises, vendors, and carriers. For 25+ years, Robin has advised hundreds of senior IT executives, ranging in size from Fortune 100 to Fortune 2000, developing technology strategies and analyzing how they can transform their businesses. She has developed industry-leading, interactive cost models for some of the world’s largest enterprises and vendors. Robin leads Metrigy’s artificial intelligence and customer experience research. She also is a widely recognized expert in the communications field, with specialty areas of contact center, AI-enabled customer engagement, customer success analytics, and employee collaboration. She is a sought-after speaker at conferences and trade shows, presenting at events such as Enterprise Connect, Future of CX/ITExpo, ICMI, IDG’s FutureIT, Interop, Mobile Business Expo, and CeBit. She has authored hundreds of research reports to keep clients updated on technology adoption and associated benefits. She also writes a blog for No Jitter and is a regular contributor to Tech Target. Additional entrepreneurial experience includes co-founding and overseeing marketing and business development for The OnBoard Group, a water-purification and general contracting business in Illinois. She also served as president and treasurer of Living Hope Lutheran Church, led youth mission trips, and ran successful fundraisers for children’s cancer research. She served on the University of Illinois College of Media Advisory Council, as well. Before starting Metrigy, Robin was president and co-founder of Nemertes Research. Prior to that, she shaped technology and business coverage as senior news editor of InformationWeek, a leading business-technology publication with 440,000 readers. She also served in a variety of capacities at Data Communications and CommunicationsWeek magazines, where helped set strategic direction, oversaw reader surveys, and provided quantitative and statistical analysis. In addition to publishing hundreds of research reports, she has won several prestigious awards for her in-depth analyses of business-technology issues. Robin also taught ethics at the Poynter Institute for Advanced Media Studies. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and American Medical News. She earned a bachelor of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois and recently left the cold Chicago winters for the warmth of Tampa, FL.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

  • Cisco

    Jeetu Patel

    President & Chief Product Officer

    Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s President and Chief Product Officer. He combines a bold vision, steeped in product design and development expertise, operational rigor, and innate market understanding to create high growth businesses. He is relentlessly focused on building world class products that solve Cisco customers’ biggest problems—bringing the power of the Cisco portfolio together to connect and protect every aspect of their organization in the era of AI. Previously he was Cisco’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration where he led the strategy and development for these businesses and held P&L responsibility for the multibillion-dollar portfolio. In this role, Jeetu led with his creative vision and intense focus on innovation and swift execution.

    Together with his team, he transformed and positioned our Security and Collaboration portfolios for success and growth. In both areas, he reinvigorated organic innovation, championed key inorganic investments, and drove simplification across these portfolios with a fanatical focus on design and user experience. Prior to joining Cisco in 2020, Jeetu was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Box, a role he pioneered. He led the company’s product and platform strategy, setting the company’s long-term vision and roadmap for cloud content management in the enterprise. He transformed Box from a single product application to a multi-product platform used by 100K customers representing 69% of the Fortune 500. The discipline, quality standards, performance metrics, and stability Jeetu instilled fueled the platform’s growth – nearly quadrupling revenues to $700M+. Box’s growth scaled to reach over 60M users with over 50% of customers using multiple products.

    He also created the Box Platform business unit where he led product strategy, marketing and developer relations – driving products from incubation stage to mature offerings. Before joining Box, Jeetu was General Manager and Chief Executive of EMC’s newly acquired Syncplicity business unit, a cloud service for Enterprise File Sync Sharing (EFSS) and collaboration. One of the first SaaS-based solutions offered by EMC, Jeetu spearheaded the company’s acquisition. He created a world class leadership team, secured some of the market’s largest customers and led the group to become one of the fastest growing EFSS companies in a highly competitive market. Other key roles at EMC included CMO for the Information Intelligence Group and Chief Strategy Officer, where he drove the organic and inorganic strategy for the division’s cloud and mobile growth. Previously, Jeetu was President of Doculabs, a research and advisory firm co-owned by Forrester Research. The firm focused on collaboration and content management across a range of industries including financial services, insurance, energy, manufacturing, and life sciences. He currently serves on the board of JLL, an American commercial real estate services company. Jeetu holds a B.S. in Information Decision Sciences from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family.

  • Cisco

    Anurag Dhingra

    SVP and General Manager, Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration

    Anurag Dhingra serves as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration Group. In this role, he manages a diverse portfolio encompassing industry-leading hardware, software, and SaaS products. From Meraki, Cisco Catalyst, and Industrial IoT networking, to ThousandEyes network assurance, to Cisco Collaboration, these products power the workplaces of the world's largest and most sophisticated organizations. In our digital and AI-first world, Anurag has been a pioneer in applying new technologies to build and deliver exceptional experiences for both customers and employees. He has been instrumental in shaping Cisco's AI strategy across its product offerings, and he has led his teams in delivering thousands of innovations to Future-Proof the Workplace. During his tenure with Cisco, Anurag has held several leadership roles in the Collaboration business, including Chief Technology and Product Officer where he led the entire Collaboration software business. He was also Vice President and Head of Engineering for Webex Meetings where he was responsible for delivering applications and services to power online meetings for millions of users worldwide. With over two decades of experience in the Communications, Collaboration, and SaaS industries, Anurag is accomplished at building high performance global teams and creating innovative, market leading products. Anurag takes pride in being a customer-focused leader, with a proven track record of strategic thinking and executing with a strong culture of innovation. Passionate about applying technology for good, Anurag serves on Cisco's Human Rights Advisory Council and was the founding executive sponsor of Cisco's Responsible AI Framework. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India.

  • Cisco

    Aruna Ravichandran

    SVP & CMO, Collaboration

    Aruna drives significant revenue growth and brand value through a powerful blend of technological expertise, data science acumen, strategic storytelling, and marketing innovation. An early adopter of marketing automation and AI, Aruna stays at the forefront of technological advancements, consistently leveraging them to disrupt competitive markets. Her leadership in SaaS marketing and enterprise technology and her vision for AI's role in shaping customer and employee experiences have made her a sought-after thought leader in the industry. Beyond her professional achievements, Aruna is a passionate advocate for women in technology and making the STEM fields more inclusive and accessible. Aruna has an MBA and MS in Computer Engineering from Santa Clara University and a BS in Computer Science from Bangalore Institute of Technology. She is an alumna of the CMO Leadership program at Kellogg Business School. She serves on Cal Polytechnic San Luis Obispo, Fast Company, Forbes Technology Council, and Vox Media boards.

  • Cisco

    Snorre Kjesbu

    SVP & GM, Collaboration, Employee Experience

    Snorre Kjesbu is Senior Vice President & General Manager of Collaboration Devices at Cisco. He is a global citizen leading a worldwide organization responsible for the collaboration devices business ranging from IP phones to immersive video systems. Snorre’s passion for design with over 20 years of engineering experience are at the core of his belief in always providing authentic user experiences. Prior to his return to Cisco, Snorre was Executive VP of Design, Creation and Fulfillment at BANG & OLUFSEN in Copenhagen. His résumé also includes SVP at Tandberg and being responsible for R&D on wireless communication at ABB.

    He and his team at ABB were awarded the Wall Street Journal Innovation award for their work on wireless sensors in 2002. Snorre holds a Master of Science from the University of Bristol and has been a guest lecturer at the Stanford Network Research Center in Stanford University. He has obtained more than 20 patents in the areas of communications and video conferencing and is on the board of directors for several IT companies. When not working, Snorre can likely be seen on a pair of skis – whether on snow or water.

  • Cisco

    Jay Patel

    SVP & GM, Collaboration, Customer Experience

    Jay Patel is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Webex Customer Experience Solutions business, responsible for product development, engineering, operations and go-to-market. The Customer Experience portfolio brings together Contact Center and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) capabilities, enhanced with AI technology, to deliver a seamless experience across the customer journey and improve how brands interact with their customers. Jay joined Cisco when IMImobile PLC was acquired in 2021. As an early founder and CEO, Jay led IMImobile’s growth from 80 to 800 employees and executed a successful IPO on the London Stock Exchange in 2014. Prior to IMImobile Jay co-founded Spark Ventures PLC, an early-stage venture capital firm, and held corporate finance roles at UBS Warburg and BSkyB. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and an Economics degree from the London School of Economics. Jay has served as both an executive and non-executive director on the boards of private and public companies and has led several investments and exits.

BREAKOUT SESSION SPEAKERS

  • Cisco

    Abhi Dev

    Lead Product Manager

    Abhi has managed the Campaign Management product in the Webex CPaaS portfolio for over 8 years. Prior to that Abhi worked for over 15 years for IBM helping clients implement large scale data management and CX solutions across a variety of industry verticals such as telecommunications, finance, utilities, CPG and public sector.

  • Cisco

    Abhiram Kramadhati

    Director, AI Go-to-Market and Ops

    Abhiram leads the AI GTM function for the Customer Experience Business at Cisco. He is based out of Melbourne, Australia. Using AI in the CX space is his favourite domain. In his role, he works with early customers on thier CX transformation by leveraging AI and also helps define the strategy to make the broader Cisco customer and partner community be successful with Cisco's AI portfolio for their CX requirements. He has previously worked at Google and Uniphore in the same space.

  • Cisco

    Agustin Vargas

    Product Manager - Bars and Kits

     Agustin Vargas is the Product Manager for Bars and Kits in Cisco Collaboration, where he brings deep expertise in driving end-to-end product development. With a strong track record leading flagship products like the Cisco EQX, EQ, and Board Pro, Agustin thrives at the intersection of technology, design, user research, and supply chain—transforming complex, multidisciplinary challenges into seamless customer experiences.

    Guided by a relentless curiosity, Agustin is passionate about uncovering the behaviors and unmet needs that inspire impactful innovation. His approach blends strategic insight with hands-on execution, always focused on how technology can elegantly solve real-world problems.

  • Cisco

    Aishwarya Rao

    Senior AI Product Manager

    Aishwarya is a product manager at Cisco within the Collaboration AI team leading foundational AI services that power Webex's highly impactful AI features across Meetings, Messaging, Contact Center, and Calling.

  • Cisco

    Amey Parandekar

    VP Product Management, Cisco Calling

    Amey leads Product Management for Cisco Calling including cloud Calling, on-premise Unified Communications Manager (UCM) and Broadworks. Cisco calling is an easy to use, mobile integrated, enterprise grade, innovative calling phone system that is easy to setup and manage for IT admins, with best-in-class security & global availability. He is passionate about innovation and evolving the calling experience from hearing, to seeing, to doing; empowering people to have a richer calling experience with Webex and leveraging cloud capabilities for the new era of hybrid work. Prior to Cisco, Amey built Microsoft Teams calling and meetings from ground up and grew Teams adoption to millions of users. He also led Product management for Microsoft's Azure cloud IaaS/PaaS services across different verticals segments including sovereign clouds and government verticals. He has extensive experience working at large companies as well as startups, building innovative products and bringing them to market. Amey brings more than 25 years of experience in areas such as product management, design, cloud engineering in productivity software at Microsoft Office, natural language processing, machine learning with search and NUI experiences, hardware integration for audio and video and analytics. He has developed 20 patents over his career. Amey has a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and a Masters from North Carolina State University. He lives in Seattle with his family and enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking and kayaking in his free time.

  • Cisco

    Amit Barave

    VP, Product, Webex Suite & AI

    Amit Barave is the VP of Product, Webex Suite and Webex AI, supporting the Collaboration organization. In this role, Amit leads a talented team of Product Managers who help to release all the features and improvements that make Webex great. Amit has been with Cisco for over 20 years and is a Communications and Collaboration industry veteran. Prior to Webex, Amit was instrumental in launching industry-first products in Telepresence and IP-Radio communications space and scaling them to market leadership. He holds an MBA from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. A prolific innovator, Amit also holds 13 US patents in the field of radio and video communications.

  • Cisco

    Andy Johnston

    Leader, Product Marketing

    Andy currently serves as product marketing leader for our portfolio of video collaboration devices, including Cisco Room Bars and Kits, and Cisco Board Pro series. Andy has been a member of the collaboration product marketing team for over 12 years. Prior to his current role, he has held product marketing roles for a wide range of Cisco collaboration devices, and on-premises and cloud collaboration solutions. Andy has over 25 years’ experience supporting a range of diverse technologies in business management, marketing, product management, and engineering leadership roles with technology manufacturers, software development, and channel partner organizations. He has a Master of Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and a Diploma in Marketing from the Charted Institute of Marketing. Andy lives with his family in the UK, and enjoys listening to music, going to festivals and playing the guitar (not very well).

  • Cisco

    Annemarie Hauge

    Leader, Product Management

    Annemarie is the Site Lead for the Oslo Experience Center and Head of Employee Experience for Cisco Norway. With 14 years at Cisco, she has played a pivotal role in shaping workplace culture and driving innovation across the organization. Annemarie collaborates closely with teams around the world to roll out Cisco’s latest technology and elevate both customer and employee experiences. Known for her hands-on leadership and forward-thinking approach, Annemarie is passionate about building environments where people and ideas thrive.

  • Cisco

    Ashley Prettyman

    Product Manager Lead

    Ashley Prettyman is a Product Manager Lead in Cisco Collaboration Devices, specializing in driving innovative products through their full lifecycle—from initial concept, development, market launch, and ongoing feature enhancement. With over 13 years of experience in new product development, Ashley brings a broad expertise spanning product portfolio management, hardware and software development, vendor relations, product marketing, supply chain operations, and partner and customer engagements. 

    Before joining Cisco, Ashley worked at a global oil and gas company in supply chain and portfolio management providing valuable experiences across industries. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Distribution from Texas A&M University. Outside of work, she enjoys exploring diverse cultures and cuisines through traveling and maintains an active lifestyle playing soccer and pickleball. 

  • Cisco

    Brian Heikes

    Sr. Director, Product Management

    Brian is responsible for driving the core platform development and innovation across the Webex CX Suite of products. With a background in CPaaS, he's previously lead the Webex Connect product and Messaging Gateways, enabling brands to leverage voice and digital channels to drive interaction. He focuses on enabling enterprises to build smarter experiences to engage with their customers and employees using AI, workflows and interactive messaging. Brian has 20+ years of product experience centered on delivering communications platforms that address the requirements of enterprise IT and developers. His work allows companies to create innovative customer experiences that take advantage of the unique nature of mobile communications.

  • Cisco

    Caitlin Lacey

    Director, Global Product Marketing

    Caitlin is a product marketing leader with 15+ years of experience shaping go-to-market strategy across emerging technology, hardware, and collaboration software. She leads marketing for Cisco’s Employee Experience portfolio, spanning devices and software that power hybrid work. Known for building high-performing teams and crafting narratives that drive adoption, she brings a sharp focus on business impact and human connection.

  • Cisco

    Chang Chang

    Senior Director, Product Management

    Chang is a Senior Director of Product Management in the Webex Customer Experience Solutions business. With over 14 years of product leadership experience, Chang has held key roles at Intuit and Mighty Audio (early-stage startup) as well as a management consultant at PwC. Chang holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson.

  • Cisco

    Chris Palermo

    Global Specialist - Collaboration & Workplace Strategy

    Chris Palermo is a Global Specialist at Cisco Systems, specializing in enterprise collaboration, smart and sustainable workspaces, and the evolving challenges of hybrid work. In his role, Chris helps shape sales strategies and go-to-market initiatives, collaborating closely with product development, product marketing, Cisco customers, and partners to drive innovation and adoption in these critical areas. A passionate social media evangelist, Chris has been recognized as one of the Top-50 Unified Communications Influencers, known for sharing insights on topics such as enterprise collaboration, hybrid work, the future of work, artificial intelligence, workplace transformation, and workforce experience. He has also been honored as a LinkedIn Top Voice for his thought leadership in both workplace design and sales presentations. Chris is a frequent and engaging presenter, sharing his expertise on these various topics at Cisco conferences and industry events worldwide.

  • Cisco

    Christina Dolan

    Sr Manager, Americas CX Solutions Engineering

    Christina Dolan is a Senior Solutions Engineering Manager at Cisco, where she leads engineering strategies for the Americas Customer Experience Sales team. Bringing over 30 years of industry expertise, Christina excels at guiding engineering teams to support customer business transformation and to seize new opportunities driven by digital innovation. Since joining Cisco three decades ago, Christina has focused her career on Solutions Engineering, primarily in management roles dedicated to customer technology evangelization. Before her tenure at Cisco, she contributed to Australia’s Defense Science Technology Organization, working on research for an early warning system to detect Black Hawk helicopter gearbox failures. Christina possesses deep expertise in Cisco’s sales and engineering operations and is passionate about using strategic planning to help shape a better future. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Aeronautical Engineering from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and an MBA from NC State's Poole College of Management.

  • Cisco

    Dan Gallant

    Instructional Design Training Manager

    Dan Gallant is a 25-year learning and development pro in the technology space. He is currently an Instructional Design Training Manager for Webex Academy. In this role, Dan builds and executes certification training for customer-facing and external partners to learn about Cisco's products and services, and how to implement and sell them. He designs, builds, and delivers content for the Cisco Webex suite, Webex Contact Center, and other Cisco SaaS cloud products. Dan makes his home outside of Washington DC with his wife and two children. When he's not working, you'll find him cycling through the roads of Northern Virginia, repairing vintage audio gear, or baking a mean sourdough.

  • Cisco

    Dan Mathews

    Chief Architect and Strategist

    Dan Mathews is a strategist and architect responsible for Cisco’s Global Collaboration roadmap and vision, with 25 years of experience in the Customer Engagement industry. Since joining Cisco in 2009, he has been responsible for aligning Cisco’s Collaboration portfolio with disruptive industry trends and customer-specific business drivers. In addition, Dan is frequently sought out by Cisco clients to provide guidance around the development of their collaboration strategies and roadmaps. Dan holds significant expertise in the design and deployment of Collaboration focused data solutions, predictive analytics, and large language models. Prior accountabilities include 10 years with Avaya’s Global Strategic Solutions group, where he was a domain expert in the design and deployment of IP contact centers and the suite of reporting and analytic solutions that supported the adoption of the Flatten, Consolidate, and Extend (FCE) contact center model. Dan also was a principal at Denver based Centerpoint Solutions, which delivered custom reporting and analytics solutions for the Avaya contact center portfolio. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Loyola University and advanced Microsoft, Java, and Cisco certifications. Beyond collaboration technologies, Dan’s other activities include the preservation and restoration of coral reef environments throughout the world. As a member of the John G. Shedd Aquarium Council, SECORE, and Coral Restoration Foundation, Dan specializes in aquaculture techniques for captive breeding of coral on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Through his work, Dan has shown how AI and the cloud can help to track and protect the spawning events of endangered coral colonies. Dan is also an avid beekeeper and cares for a small apiary during his time away from technology. He resides in Long Grove Illinois, USA, with his wife Magdalena and two children Olivia (18) and Philip (14).

  • Cisco

    Dave Jennings

    CX Strategy Leader

    David Jennings is a global leader in Customer Experience (CX) Solutions and Agentic AI at Cisco. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, David works closely with enterprise clients to bridge strategy and execution—ensuring that Cisco’s cutting-edge technologies align seamlessly with each customer’s existing ecosystem and business priorities. A thought leader in Agentic AI, David is passionate about the transformative power of intelligent, autonomous agents and their potential to redefine how enterprises interact with their customers. His mission is to help organizations harness these innovations in ways that deliver tangible value—enhancing efficiency, personalization, and trust at every touchpoint. David regularly speaks at global events, sharing insights on the evolution of CX, the role of AI in enterprise transformation, and practical strategies for innovation.

  • Cisco

    Devinder Kathuria

    Dircetor, Product Management

    Devinder is Director of Product Management at Cisco, where he leads the strategy and execution for the Webex Developer Ecosystem and Integrations. He is responsible for shaping platform capabilities, including APIs, SDKs, and marketplace solutions, that empower developers and partners to deliver innovative, integrated experiences across calling, meeting, messaging, and contact center workflows. With extensive experience in product strategy, go-to-market, and user experience, Devinder is passionate about enabling organizations to unlock new possibilities through collaboration technology.

  • Cisco

    DP Venkatesh

    VP Growth Strategy, Cisco Collaboration

    DP is VP / Chief Growth Officer for Cisco's multi-billion dollar Collaboration business. He is responsible for driving partner transformation and growth initiatives and works closely with partners to enable their strategic objectives. The Webex platform serves as the foundation for Cisco’s market-leading position across Calling, Meetings, Messaging, Contact Center, and Devices. DP joined Cisco through the acquisition of BroadSoft, where he was VP & GM of BroadSoft Digital, the digital arm of BroadSoft focusing on customers' digital needs and enabling their business transformation. His mission was to make BroadSoft the partner of choice for customers as they addressed the disruption in their marketplace caused by new digital entrants, cloud-native attackers and SaaS business models. Prior to BroadSoft, DP was the Founder and CEO of mPortal, which developed cloud-based mobile software solutions for telecom, cable, and media providers. Under DP's leadership, mPortal grew successfully into a profitable company with over 200 people, serving leading companies such as AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Disney, ESPN, Reliance, TELUS, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, Virgin Group and Xerox. DP led the successful acquisition of mPortal by BroadSoft in 2015 and joined the executive team at BroadSoft responsible for their digital business. DP was selected by the State of Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology as one of the Top 50 CIT GAP Entrepreneurs creating the next generation of innovative high-growth companies.

  • Cisco

    Edel Joyce

    Director of Product Management for AI and Elevated Experiences for Cisco Devices

    Edel Joyce is an established technology executive with years of experience in driving innovation and delivering results. Her expertise spans engineering, operations, design, customer experience and strategy. Most recently, Edel led the development of the multi award-winning Webex Hologram and the launch of the industry-first Cisco Spatial Meetings in partnership with Apple. Currently, she is at the forefront of developing AI-powered experiences for Cisco devices and redefining user interactions across the portfolio. Edel is passionate about delivering products for the greater good and challenging the norm.

  • Cisco

    Elizabeth Marinou

    Product Marketing Manager

    Elizabeth Marinou is a Product Marketing Manager at Cisco, specializing in Webex AI Agent. Her passion lies in translating complex AI technology into clear, relatable stories that connect with any audience, regardless of their technical expertise. With deep CX knowledge, Elizabeth helps organizations understand how AI can enhance existing processes to unlock real results, without disrupting what already works.

  • Cisco

    Finn Helge Lunde

    Product Director, Devices

    20+ years industry experience with video and collaboration technology Product manager and director for Cisco Video Devices (SX and MX Series, Room Kit Series) Strategy and technology partnership development for Cisco Video Devices Currently responsible for Business Development and GoToMarket strategies for Cisco Devices towards Public Sector and Development of Strategic partnership

  • Cisco

    Francis Kurupacheril

    Director, Product Management

    Francis Kurupacheril is a seasoned technology executive and product strategist with over 27 years of experience delivering transformative AI and SaaS innovations across enterprise and consumer platforms. He currently serves as Director of Product Management at Cisco, where he leads the company’s GenAI and Language AI strategy for the Webex portfolio. At Cisco, Francis has architected and operationalized a multi-layered AI platform powering over 3.5 million meeting summaries and ~150 billion LLM tokens processed. He spearheads the development of foundational technologies—including Cisco’s LLM Proxy, Guardrails, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI Agent Framework, and enterprise-grade summarization systems—ensuring security, observability, and compliance with FedRAMP, IL6, and PSF standards. His initiatives around “Ultra-Secure AI” and agentic collaboration platforms are positioning Cisco as a trusted AI partner for government and regulated industries. An expert in LLM productization, Responsible AI, and agent-based architectures, Francis has scaled AI systems with multi-model support (OpenAI, Claude, Cisco-native models), achieving over 5x cost efficiency in key use cases. He has overseen delivery across AI-driven collaboration features, including real-time Vidcast personalization, semantic graph search, topic analytics, and multi-modal assistants—impacting revenue growth and daily productivity for millions of enterprise users. Prior to Cisco, Francis founded Piot Networks, an IoT platform company, and held senior product roles at Purple Communications, InFocus, Huawei, and ShoreTel. He began his career in software engineering with Alcatel and Cisco, building VoIP and communication systems. Francis holds an MBA in Finance & Strategy from Santa Clara University, an MS in Software Management from Carnegie Mellon University, and a BE in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Madras. He is a named inventor on multiple AI/ML patents and is recognized for driving zero-to-one innovation at the intersection of product strategy, AI safety, and large-scale execution.

  • Cisco

    Gyorgy Gyarmati

    Product Marketing Manager

    Gyorgy is Product Marketing Lead for Cisco room devices, room accessories, and Workspace Designer. He's an experienced B2B marketer with expertise in driving success with product marketing, solutions marketing, and content strategy, from strategy to execution, at Fortune 500 companies (Cisco, IBM, Verint) and high-growth startups (Verba Technologies).

  • Cisco

    Hannah Berke

    Customer Success Leader

    As the dedicated Customer Success Leader for Vidcast, I am deeply committed to guiding organizations through the transformative adoption of asynchronous video communications. My journey with Vidcast began during its beta phase in September 2021, and it has been a remarkable experience to witness and contribute to its growth and evolution. I am most passionate about empowering customers through education, coupled with fostering dynamic and enduring relationships.

  • Cisco

    John Reeder

    Vice President of Product Management

    John Reeder, Vice President of Product Management in Cisco’s Devices Technology Group, John leads product, strategy and innovation for the company’s headsets, business phones, and video phone portfolio. With nearly 20 years of experience spanning data networking, cybersecurity, and unified communications, John brings deep expertise across devices, mobility solutions, AI, cloud platforms, and product strategy. Prior to his current role, he played a pivotal part in advancing soft clients and mobility solutions for both enterprise and service provider markets. His extensive global background in designing, implementing, and optimizing collaboration solutions provides, with a nuanced understanding of the evolving challenges and opportunities facing today’s businesses.

  • Cisco

    Jonathan Cook

    Senior Product Manager

    Jonathan has been with Cisco for 10+ years with 8+ of those years being in product management. He's been in the CX space for 3 years focused on improving the administrator experience and reducing the time to value by delivering self service trials, multiple subscriptions per customer, automated voice/digital provisioning, and a completely revamped + flexible access control solution. Jonathan enjoys talking to customers and partners about how we can improve the product to make the admininstrators life easier. He's presented at industry events in the past and looks forward to connecting!

  • Cisco

    Kenny Bloxham

    Global Healthcare CX Director

    Kenny Bloxham is an experienced healthcare technology leader with over 15 years of driving digital transformation alongside healthcare providers, with a strong focus on patient engagement, empowerment, and personalized care.

  • Cisco

    Manali Dongre

    Director, Product Management

    Manali Dongre is a product leader at Cisco, where she heads the team driving Agent, Supervisor, and Analyzer Experiences for Webex Contact Center within Cisco’s Collaboration Group. A passionate advocate for inclusive design, she also leads Accessibility and Inclusivity initiatives across the Collaboration portfolio, ensuring Cisco’s products are usable by all. Since joining Cisco in 2020, Manali has been at the forefront of delivering innovative, user-centered experiences that enhance productivity and collaboration. She lives in Mumbai, India with her husband and their cat, Izzy.

  • Cisco

    Manoj Muthavarapu

    Director, Product Management

    Manoj heads the product team focussed on AI for CX, particularly Webex AI Agent. A fullstack developer turned product manager, Manoj has joined Cisco via the IMI acquisition and works out of Hyderabad, India where he stays with his wife and son. Outside work, cricket, travel and conversations over coffee are some of the things that get him excited.

  • Cisco

    Marisa Rutti

    Product Marketing Manager

    Marisa Rutti is a Product Marketing Manager at Cisco. With a passion for new technology, she enjoys discussing the value of collaboration devices and how they can create more productive experiences within the workplace. Over her 9 years at Cisco, she has contributed to industry and IoT solutions. Prior to joining Cisco, Marisa held positions within the high-tech partner community and start-ups, building expertise in storytelling, product, and digital marketing.

  • Cisco

    Michael McGary

    Director, Product Management

    Michael is Cisco’s Director of Product Management overseeing Collaboration Market Access, Webex Suite Security, Scheduling & Calendar Systems, and other Webex back-end services. With over a decade of experience in cloud solutions, Michael has been pivotal in leading key projects such as the OBTP “Green Join Button,” Video Integration for Microsoft Teams, and Zero Trust Security for Webex. Michael's career began at General Electric, where he led the Video Communications team, managing video conferencing, satellite, and internal cable television systems for GE Power Systems. He was also the first to implement an internal webcasting network at GE. Prior to his role at Cisco, Michael worked at TANDBERG for over 8 years, where he played a significant role in designing solutions and architectures for many key customers starting with US Southwest region, expanding to all of US, and later world-wide.

  • Cisco

    Micheal Wang

    WxSuite Product Owner: US Public Sector

    Michael is the Webex Suite Product Owner for the Webex for Government Program offering across US Public Sector: Federal, Civilian, State, Local, and Education at Cisco. Prior to Cisco, Michael was at Microsoft where he held Product amd Program Management roles across Operations, Licensing and Pricing, Enterprise Commerce, and Microsoft Teams where he was responsible for driving Quarterly Planning, Release Management, and Engineering Systems across the Calling Meeting and Devices Org, leading device certification programs and partner engagements for Peripherals Product categories across Teams Devices ecosystem. Michael leads by promoting inclusive team cultures in meetings and incorporating customer empathy in design thinking. He holds a MBA from Seattle University and a BS from University of Washington in Applied Mathematics. Outside of work, he enjoys traveling and exploring new places with his wife and 4.5 year old son and stays active playing softball and tennis.

  • Cisco

    Molita Sorishochamaki

    Product Marketing Lead, Webex Suite

    Molita is a Product Marketing Lead at Cisco focusing on the all-in-one, AI-powered Webex Collaboration Suite that is built for today’s modern work.

  • Cisco

    Nirav Chanchani

    Director, Product Management

    Nirav is a Director of Product Management at Cisco, and manages a team responsible for Control Hub - the management platform for the Webex Collaboration suite of products. This encompasses the areas of partner and customer onboarding, user management, administration, licensing, and service provisioning across all the Webex GTM channels. Nirav joined Cisco as a product manager helping build and then successfully launching Cisco’s cloud-based instant messaging product, Webex Messenger/Jabber. He led the initial onboarding of several marquee early adopter customers onto the new product and grew it to 4.5 million users. Subsequently, Nirav led the building of a cloud-based service for automating the provisioning of Cisco’s entire collaboration portfolio of products. This resulted in reducing operational costs, while significantly improving customer satisfaction by cutting down of provisioning times by over 90% and a significant reduction in support cases. Nirav has over 20 years of experience in building enterprise software and has previously held product management positions at Oracle, and BEA Systems. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Pune, and a MBA for San Jose State University.

  • Cisco

    Padmini Krishnan

    Product Manager

    Padmini Krishnan is a Product Manager for Webex Contact Center, focused on Agent Experiences and the AI Assistant for agents. She previously led product initiatives in the Webex Devices group, where she helped develop next-generation collaboration hardware and deepen platform integrations. Prior to her transition into product management, Padmini spent seven years as a software engineer. She holds a Master’s degree in Computer Networks from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.

  • Cisco

    Paula Goldrich

    Product Marketing Leader, Webex CX Solutions

    Paula Goldrich is a dynamic Product Marketing Leader for Webex Customer Experience Solutions, recognized for her inquisitive nature and passion for storytelling. With over a decade of experience spanning CPaaS, CCaaS, UCaaS, and retail operations, Paula brings a distinctive perspective on customer needs, stakeholder priorities, and market trends. She excels at elevating the Webex Customer Experience portfolio, launching innovative products and features, and navigating the rapidly evolving customer experience landscape. Paula's unique background empowers her to connect with diverse audiences and drive impactful results. Paula holds a B.S. in Marketing and a B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University. She currently resides in New Jersey.

  • Cisco

    Raj Kumar

    Director, Product Management

    Raj is Director of Product Management at Cisco and responsible for the strategy, product management, and go to market for Webex platform for US and Global Public Sector that includes Federal Civilian, State, Local and Education, Defense Industrial Base, and National Security and Defense. In addition, Raj is also leads the strategy and product management of Webex expansion into new country/region through data residency, data sovereignty and sovereign clouds solutions, as well as encryption and key management technologies. Previously, Raj also led the strategy and product management for Security, Identity Management, Compliance, Partner ecosystem and established Webex as best-in-breed secure Collaboration platform. Raj has 15+ years of enterprise product management experience at leading technology companies, including Cisco, Microsoft, and Amazon. Raj holds a Master’s degree in the Computer Science from University of Florida and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

  • Cisco

    Sara Velasco-Spindler

    Sales Business Development Manager

    Sara is a Business Development Manager with the Global Collaboration SE Team. She specializes in analyzing the key differentiators that set Cisco above the competition. Sara has been with Cisco for more than 4 years and the partner community for 14 years.

  • Cisco

    Shilpi Sneha

    Product Marketing Manager

    Shilpi Sneha is a product and solutions marketing leader with deep expertise in AI, IT, and networking. At Cisco, she drives the go-to-market strategy for Webex AI Solutions, helping businesses enhance customer and employee experiences through AI-driven innovations. With a background in both engineering and marketing, she bridges the gap between technology and business impact, translating innovations into real-world value through close collaboration with customers, product, sales, and engineering teams. With over a decade of experience across Fortune 500 companies and startups, Shilpi has worked closely with IT leaders, UCaaS/CCaaS decision-makers, and technical teams to align product strategy with customer needs. She has led large-scale AI initiatives, conducted extensive market and voice-of-customer research, and launched solutions that improve customer experience, optimize workflows, and drive measurable outcomes.

  • Simon Brough

    Business Development Collaboration

    Simon Brough is a Business Development Manager at Cisco, where he focuses on shaping the future of work through innovative collaboration devices and workplace solutions. With more than 20 years of experience at Cisco in various roles, Simon brings a wealth of knowledge to his interactions with customers, partners, and product teams. He is passionate about leveraging technology to help teams connect, collaborate, and perform at their best.

  • Cisco

    Sonu Arora

    Senior Director of Product

    Sonu Arora is Senior Director of Product for Webex Calling at Cisco, where she leads product management for one of the world’s most widely used calling platform. With over 20 years of experience spanning engineering and product leadership, Sonu has helped shape collaboration technologies at both Cisco and Microsoft — including contributions to Skype, Microsoft Teams, and Azure Infrastructure.  She’s passionate about building products that connect people, simplify work, and scale globally. Sonu brings a unique blend of technical depth and customer-first thinking to every conversation. Sonu resides in Seattle area with her husand and two daughters.

  • Cisco

    Stefan Zeidenberg

    Solutions Engineer

    Stefan Zeidenberg helps lead CX strategy and innovation within Cisco’s Customer Experience Outcomes team, helping enterprise organizations modernize how they connect with customers through AI, automation, and digital channels. With over a decade of experience in conversational automation and conversational AI, Stefan is focused on driving intelligent front-door strategies that reduce friction, improve outcomes, and unlock new value across the customer journey. He works cross-functionally with customers, product, sales, and engineering to bring Cisco’s AI-powered solutions to life in the enterprise.

  • Cisco

    Teney Takahashi

    Product Marketing Manager

     Teney is a Product Marketing Manager in the Webex Calling team. He has spent much of his career in the unified communications industry during the transition from on-premises to the cloud.

    Teney received undergraduate and MBA degrees in Marketing from Santa Clara University. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.

  • Cisco

    Travis Pouliot

    Director, Employee Experience

    Cisco veteran of over 24 years focused in Cisco's collaboration portfolio. Currently the Director of the Sales Center of Excellence for Employee Experience which covers the full Webex Suite and Cisco Devices.

  • Cisco

    Willem Evert Nijenhuis

    Senior Director Product Management

    Willem Evert Nijenhuis has been with Cisco’s Contact Center solution for 24 years and is a veteran in the contact center industry for 30 years. He is senior Director of Product Management for Cisco’s contact center solutions. He was part of the original team that introduced the first IP contact center solution, joining Cisco from the Geotel acquisition in 1999. From 2021 onwards he was Vice-President of product management at Genesys, before returning to Cisco in early 2023. Before joining Cisco in 1999, he was with AT&T-Unisource (now part of BT) in Europe, where he led the introduction of the Cisco hosted contact center solutions as part of their international call center service. Before that he held a number of positions in KPN Telecom (the Netherlands incumbent carrier), in research, consultancy, marketing and sales within KPN’s call centre business unit. Mr. Nijenhuis has a MS degree in theoretical computer science and a MA in general linguistics.

  • Cisco

    Zack Taylor

    Director Strategic Communications, Cisco Contact Center

    Zack Taylor is the Director of Strategic Communications for Cisco’s Contact Center Business Unit. In this role, he is responsible for planning, development, and communication the unit’s business-relevant solutions to key internal and external constituents. He is a published author on numerous Call Center technologies and has appeared on National Public Radio, discussing the value of technology in supporting customer relationships. Taylor is a featured Cisco blogger and his posts can be found at http://blogs.cisco.com/author/zacktaylor He has participated in programs at The London School of Business and University of Michigan’s Executive Education Program. He is also a Satmetrix-certified Net Promoter® practitioner and a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP). He is a frequent speaker in the Call Center and Collaboration marketplace at industry and customer events, and currently has authored seven approved and two pending US patents and four European patents on call center innovations. He resides in Bedminster, New Jersey, USA.

TRAINING SESSION SPEAKERS

  • Cisco

    Abhiram Kramadhati

    Director, AI Go-to-Market and Ops

    Abhiram leads the AI GTM function for the Customer Experience Business at Cisco. He is based out of Melbourne, Australia. Using AI in the CX space is his favourite domain. In his role, he works with early customers on thier CX transformation by leveraging AI and also helps define the strategy to make the broader Cisco customer and partner community be successful with Cisco's AI portfolio for their CX requirements. He has previously worked at Google and Uniphore in the same space.

  • Cisco

    Abner Gonzalez

    Technical Consulting Engineer - Lead

    Abner has 10+ years supporting customers and 6 years working as a Cloud Collaboration Engineer with a proven track record of helping customers navigate, deploy, maintain and debug complex collaboration solutions to meet their business needs. He leads a team of Cloud Collaboration TAC engineers who help solve customer issues every day.

  • Cisco

    Adam North

    Enablement Specialist

    Having been part of the Broadsoft Team prior to its acquisition by Cisco, Adam has been intimately involved with the Webex Calling and Contact Center Products from their initial development through to its present-day form. With a tenure spanning several years as a front-line trainer, Adam has been instrumental in the delivery, creation, and revision of training materials for Cisco Partners, enabling them to effectively resell the product. Adam now leverages his comprehensive knowledge of Webex Calling and Contact Center to design new training courses, develop educational content for the latest features for partners and Customers.

  • Cisco

    Adam Weeks

    Manager, Webex Developer Evangelism

    Adam Weeks is a lifelong developer with a passion for learning, teaching, and building applications with over 20 years industry experience. As manager of the Webex Developer Evangelism program, Adam & his team empower developers to build on the Webex ecosystem. He has spoken worldwide to audiences of all sizes, from small intimate workshops to the main stage of global conferences. Adam is a native Floridian and any time not spent on the computer is spent on the water with his wife and two children.

  • Cisco

    Adrian Gruszowski

    Technical Consulting Engineer

    Adrian is a Technical Consulting Engineer and Team Leader of the TAC SSPT Webex support team at Cisco, where he has been supporting customers since 2017. He specializes in Webex devices, Webex Meetings, and Webinars, with a strong background in both on-premises and cloud collaboration solutions. Adrian holds a CCIE Collaboration certification and is passionate about using Webex REST APIs to automate workflows and enhance customer integrations. He works closely with customers and partners to troubleshoot complex issues, deliver innovative solutions, and drive improvements in Webex serviceability. Adrian is also a Cisco Live EMEA (Amsterdam) speaker, sharing his expertise and best practices with the wider Cisco community. His leadership and technical knowledge help ensure seamless collaboration experiences for Cisco users worldwide.

  • Cisco

    Agustin Vargas

    Product Manager - Bars and Kits

     Agustin Vargas is the Product Manager for Bars and Kits in Cisco Collaboration, where he brings deep expertise in driving end-to-end product development. With a strong track record leading flagship products like the Cisco EQX, EQ, and Board Pro, Agustin thrives at the intersection of technology, design, user research, and supply chain—transforming complex, multidisciplinary challenges into seamless customer experiences.

    Guided by a relentless curiosity, Agustin is passionate about uncovering the behaviors and unmet needs that inspire impactful innovation. His approach blends strategic insight with hands-on execution, always focused on how technology can elegantly solve real-world problems.

  • Cisco

    Aishwarya Rao

    Senior AI Product Manager

    Aishwarya is a product manager at Cisco within the Collaboration AI team leading foundational AI services that power Webex's highly impactful AI features across Meetings, Messaging, Contact Center, and Calling.

  • Cisco

    Akshat Atray

    Software Engineer

    Akshat Atray is a dedicated developer with a strong interest in building thoughtful, scalable, and accessible software. Born and raised in New Delhi, India, he currently works at Cisco, contributing to the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center (CUIC) within the Contact Center Enterprise (CCE) suite. Over the past few years, he has worked across the stack, helping modernize legacy systems, improve user experiences, and build systems with long-term maintainability in mind. Akshat often shares his thoughts at speaking engagements on topics such as Artificial Intelligence, System Design, Accessibility, and App Development. He values clear, thoughtful communication and enjoys exchanging ideas with others in the tech community. Outside of work, Akshat enjoys football (soccer), photography, painting, and traveling. Thoughtful in his approach and curious by nature, Akshat continues to explore ways technology can solve real problems and bring people together.

  • Cisco

    Amy Ryan

    Principal Solutions Engineer

    Amy Ryan is a Principal Solutions Engineer with over 25 years of experience in collaboration technologies. Amy has worked at Cisco partners and the last 15 years at Cisco designing and deploying complex calling solutions. Over the past few years it has been her passion to help customers move from premise based calling to cloud calling solutions. Amy attended Eastern Kentucky University and lives in Kentucky with her sons.

  • Cisco

    Andrew Wiseman

    Solutions Engineer, Collaboration

    As a Cisco Solutions Engineer, Andrew brings seven years of in-depth experience in advancing collaboration technologies. His extensive background at Cisco includes providing specialized support across critical verticals such as finance, healthcare, and professional services. Before his current role, Andrew gained valuable hands-on experience by managing the deployment and ongoing operations of collaboration solutions for large enterprises.

  • Cisco

    Anne Quinn

    Senior Customer Success Manager

    As a dedicated Customer Success Manager for Webex, I support both commercial clients and government agencies, ensuring seamless collaboration experiences across diverse environments. With deep expertise in Webex’s comprehensive suite—including calling, messaging, meeting and Slido. I help organizations leverage the power of Webex to enhance productivity, security, and user engagement. Passionate about driving adoption and customer satisfaction. I play a key role in enabling customers to unlock the full potential of Webex solutions tailored to their unique needs, including the specialized requirements of Webex for Government. I look forward to sharing insights on delivering secure, scalable, and intelligent collaboration experiences that empower teams to work smarter and more connected.

  • Cisco

    Anuj Bhatia

    Senior Technical Leader

    Anuj Bhatia possesses a profound familiarity with the Cisco Webex Collaboration ecosystem. Over 19 years, his career has been dedicated to Cisco Contact Center solutions, where he has cultivated extensive expertise in Contact Center enterprise (UCCE) on-prem and Webex Contact Center (WxCC) Cloud platforms. Presently, Anuj spearheads the support operations for both the WxCC and WxCCE solutions. He holds a Master's degree from Wichita State University and is a certified Cisco professional. Beyond his professional endeavors, Anuj finds enjoyment in hiking, actively engages with the stock market and is an avid Formula 1 fan. He is currently based in Massachusetts and operates from Cisco's Boxborough office.

  • Cisco

    Anurag Atul Agarwal

    Leader, Customer Delivery

    Anurag is a Customer Delivery Leader and the Global Technology Owner for Webex Contact Center TAC, bringing over 6 years of experience with the delivery team and more than 14 years of comprehensive expertise in the Cisco Contact Center Portfolio (UCCE, UCCX, WxCC, WxCCE). He is a seasoned expert in designing, implementing, and supporting customer engagement platforms across diverse organizations, regions, and product lines.

  • Cisco

    Anwaar Al-Zireeni

    Senior Product Manager

    Anwaar is a Senior AI Product Manager focused on building natural language capabilities and AI security features for Webex.

  • Cisco

    Barry McLellan

    Solutions Engineer

    Barry is an accomplished technology professional with a wealth of experience in contact center technologies. Back in the day, working as a computer programmer, Barry was approached with the opportunity to join the Contact Center team. As spoken by a wise person decades ago, “Barry, this contact center thing is really going to take off, you don’t want to miss this opportunity!”, and he did not. He began his journey as contact center developer in 1998 and had the opportunity to work on Cisco’s first contact center solution in Canada in 2000 (ICM 4.0 with its own HAL!). Over the past 20+ years, Barry has progressed from customer, to partner, to Cisco CX delivery and now currently works on the Cisco Contact Center Engineering Specialists Team as a Technical Solutions Architect focused on automation and leveraging cutting-edge technology. Barry is a lifelong learner, constantly striving to stay up to date with the latest advancements, and he actively shares his knowledge and mentors’ others. He is passionate about the transformative power of technology and its ability to drive business success and improve customer experiences.

  • Cisco

    Bhushan Suresh

    Technical Consulting Engineer

    I work within the TAC org currently as a team lead for the Americas

  • Cisco

    Bobby McGonigle

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    I've been with Cisco 4 years in November, with 4+ years of experience running Cisco Video Collaboration devices in higher education. My focus is on Integrator level codecs, such as the Codec EQ and Codec Pro as well as room design and customization via our extensive API. I love what I do and excited to share it with you!

  • Cisco

    Borut Kerzic

    Senior User Experience Designer

    Borut is an experience designer passionate about creating seamless connections at the intersection of physical and digital realms. At Cisco, Borut specialises in Audio and Camera Intelligence for Collaboration Devices, building solutions that bridge distances and empower people to connect and collaborate in meaningful, engaging ways. With a background in industrial and interaction design, Borut brings a holistic perspective to crafting user-centric experiences that inspire connection, foster collaboration, and redefine how we engage in a hybrid world.

  • Cisco

    Bryan Waldmann

    Solutions Engineer

    Bryan Waldmann is a Solutions Engineer at Cisco Systems and has served as the engineering lead for the Cisco Collaboration Experience Program (CCEP) Team for the past five years. In this role, Bryan guides the Collaboration Pre-Sales trial team, working closely with customers across a range of industries. He brings deep expertise in Webex Calling, UCM/DI, FedRAMP, and Webex Devices. Bryan has presented and spoken at multiple SEVTs, Voice of the Engineers (VoEs), and has provided support for several Cisco Live Labs/Sessions. Prior to joining CCEP, Bryan worked with a Cisco Partner, deploying CUCM and video solutions nationwide, with a particular focus on healthcare. He successfully led conversions of hundreds of hospitals and physician sites to CUCM. Following seven years in the partner space, Bryan transitioned to a major healthcare system, where he managed network, telecommunications, and video solutions. Bryan lives in the Cincinnati Metro area with his wife and five children.

  • Cisco

    Carl Newton

    Solutions Engineer

    Carl Newton is a seasoned Unified Communications architect with over 15 years of experience delivering advanced Cisco UC solutions across diverse market sectors. Known for his analytical approach and problem-solving expertise, Carl has led global projects integrating Webex Calling, Meetings, and Contact Center, and has been instrumental in driving cloud migration and hybrid architecture strategies. A Distinguished Speaker at Cisco Live, Carl is recognized for developing impactful technical training and mentoring others, while also influencing product innovation through Cisco’s Calling Tiger Team and advisory roles. His commitment to customer success and passion for collaboration technology make him a trusted leader and valued contributor in the unified communications field.

  • Cisco

    Chandramouli Vaithiyanathan

    Technical Leader

    I bring close to 20 years of experience in the Contact Center domain, with deep expertise spanning engineering, technical support, and partner enablement. Currently, I am part of the Partner Success team, where I focus on technical enablement and escalation management for strategic partners across the U.S., primarily around Webex Contact Center (WxCC). My background includes hands-on development and deployment with Cisco Voice Portal (starting from CVP 3.0), and I have played key roles in transitioning customers and partners to cloud-native CCaaS solutions. I actively lead initiatives such as A2Q automation, AI solution rollout planning, and technical deep-dives on capabilities like Webex APIs, routing, and Analyzer reporting. I also support partner readiness through workshops and migration guidance—especially for UCCX-to-WxCC transitions. My core strength lies in translating platform capabilities into partner success and scalable adoption. Outside of work, I am a proud parent to 2 young son, Love talking about carpentry, Travel, and Cricket

  • Cisco

    Charlie Thorpe

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    Charlie Thorpe is a Technical Marketing Engineer within the Cisco Workplace Technology Group, specifically part of the Collaboration Technical Marketing Engineering (TME) team. His areas of expertise include Microsoft Teams Rooms, RoomOS, Desk Series, Sharing, and Webex Edge for Devices. Prior to this role, he held the position of Technical Solutions Architect within the EMEA Webex SE team, where he was responsible for Webex SaaS solutions such as Webex Messaging, Webex Meetings, Webex Calling, and Webex Hybrid Service and has been with Cisco since 2010. Prior to joining Cisco, he spent four years at Nortel as a Systems Engineer within the Enterprise Sales organisation, specialising in IP telephony, contact centres, and data networking. Before his tenure at Nortel, he had a 15-year career at BT.

  • Cisco

    Chris Norman

    Collaboration Systems Engineer

    Chris is a Collaboration Systems Engineer in the Global Enterprise group at Cisco. With over 25 years of experience working in telecommunications industry Chris has worked across nearly every industry vertical from SMB to some of the largest enterprise companies in the world. Chris is also a self taught programmer that currently is the lead developer for CE-Deploy with an expertise in deploying Cisco's collaboration endpoints en-mass.

  • Cisco

    Christopher Hess

    Customer Delivery Architect

    Chris is a Delivery Architect with the Cisco Customer Experience team supporting the DoD Market. Chris specializes in designing and delivering complex technology solutions that drive business outcomes for his customers, with a deep background in Cisco's portfolio-including Security, Networking, Collaboration and Webex for Government. He works closely with stakeholders to understand their requirements and architect scalable, secure, and efficient solutions while overseeing the end-to-end delivery process, providing technical leadership and ensuring projects are executed to Cisco's high standards. Chris began his career in the United States Marine Corps, where he provided essential IT services while deployed. He then transitioned to a role as a Department of Defense contractor, supporting the Marine Corps' core network infrastructure. In 2013, Chris joined Cisco as a Technical Leader, serving as an on-site consultant to some of the most critical DoD and U.S. Federal agencies.

  • Cisco

    Clare Davis

    Enablement Specialist

    Clare is an Enablement Specialist at Cisco Systems, on the Webex Academy team, where she inspires users through dynamic live training sessions focused on the Webex Suite. Bringing over 23 years of experience in technology enablement, Clare excels in live virtual training, e-learning content development, and webinar production. She holds industry-recognized certifications in virtual facilitation and content creation, underscoring her commitment to excellence. Outside of work, Clare enjoys quality time with her family, caring for her lively group of cats, and tackling an ever-growing list of home projects.

  • Cisco

    David Scott

    Product Manager

    David is an Engineering Product Manager covering Collaboration endpoints. David has been with Cisco over 15 years and holds a CCIE.

  • Cisco

    Davide Preti

    TME Technical Leader

    Davide Preti is a Technical Marketing Engineering (TME) Technical Leader in Cisco's Collaboration Technology Group Solutions team, specializing in Unified Communications. Based in Italy, Davide joined Cisco in 2010 through the TANDBERG acquisition. With deep expertise in interoperability across Microsoft, Google, and Zoom ecosystems, he focuses on seamless video device integration and optimized meeting experiences.

  • Cisco

    Diego Manuel Jimenez Moreno

    Customer Delivery Engineering Technical Leader

    Diego Manuel Jimenez Moreno is a Technical Leader for Collaboration at Cisco, where he has been part of the TAC since 2019. With over 8 years of experience in the IT industry, he holds the CCIE Collaboration certification (#66728). Diego has been actively involved in key events such as TAC Workshops and Cisco Live events, where he has facilitated outstanding Walk-in labs. He specializes in Cisco On-Prem Collaboration, Webex Calling, Webex BOTs, and Webex APIs, with a current focus on Contact Center. Passionate about automation and innovation, Diego has made significant contributions to internal projects, currently focusing on leveraging AI possibilities.

  • Cisco

    D.K. Singh

    Principal Engineer

    D.K., CCIE Voice/Collaboration #16545, is a member of the Cisco CX Leadership team for Cisco Collaboration Technology. DK is a networker with more than 30 years of industry experience. He is a 25+-year TAC veteran recognized for being a Business Unit advisor, who has successfully led multiple product serviceability, solution interoperability and customer education initiatives as a part of CX Collaboration Team focused on hybrid and cloud collab technology. He has been instrumental in establishing multiple voice TAC teams in our global CX and Partner centers and contributed to talent and mentorship efforts. An active CCIE Voice/Collaboration authority for 15+ years, D.K. is a Cisco Live! Distinguished Speaker and also recognized as a Cisco SIP, SBC and Contact Ctr technology expert, guiding and assisting our most complex telecom customers with their technical and business challenges. His past experience include software development and realtime embedded systems programming for telecom applications. He is a Computer Science and Technology graduate and enjoys reading, movies and traveling.

  • Cisco

    Dinesh Jayachandran

    Cloud Engineering Technical Leader

    Architect responsible for all admin interfaces (Control Hub and Tenant Management Portal) for Contact Center. I also lead the initiative to enhance the onboarding experience for customers and partners.

  • Cisco

    Eric Embling

    Customer Delivery Engineering Technical Leader

    Eric Embling is a Technical Leader for Webex Meetings based out of the RTP area of North Carolina. Eric holds a Bachelor of Science in Networking from Rochester Institute of Technology, and started his 12-year Cisco career working in on-prem collaboration with the Cisco Unified Communications Manager team. Currently he has been assisting Engineering with the WSMP migration process. Eric is also involved in the co-op program bringing the next generation of talent to Cisco. As a graduate of the Cisco co-op program himself, Eric is passionate about equal access to STEM and helping co-op students thrive in their program.

  • Cisco

    Esteban Valverde

    CX TAC Technical Leader Webex Calling

    With nearly two decades of experience at Cisco, Esteban Valverde began his journey as a Developer in 2005 before joining the Cisco TAC team in Costa Rica in 2006. Since 2008, Esteban’s focus has been in Unified Collaboration Technologies, where he has continually evolved alongside the rapidly changing landscape of communication solutions. Currently, Esteban serves as a Technical Leader for Webex Calling, a position he has held since 2023. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and is passionate about driving innovation and delivering exceptional customer experiences. His primary responsibilities include creating in-depth technical documentation, collaborating with the Engineering Team to enhance product serviceability, architecting automation solutions to improve support for customers, and providing technical support to customers and TAC Engineers worldwide. Throughout his career, Esteban has supported critical Unified Communication networks for a diverse array of clients, including Fortune 500 companies. Esteban is committed to helping organizations leverage the full power of Webex Calling and ensuring customer's voice networks are reliable, scalable, and future-ready.

  • Cisco

    Francis Kurupacheril

    Director, Product Management

    Francis Kurupacheril is a seasoned technology executive and product strategist with over 27 years of experience delivering transformative AI and SaaS innovations across enterprise and consumer platforms. He currently serves as Director of Product Management at Cisco, where he leads the company’s GenAI and Language AI strategy for the Webex portfolio. At Cisco, Francis has architected and operationalized a multi-layered AI platform powering over 3.5 million meeting summaries and ~150 billion LLM tokens processed. He spearheads the development of foundational technologies—including Cisco’s LLM Proxy, Guardrails, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), AI Agent Framework, and enterprise-grade summarization systems—ensuring security, observability, and compliance with FedRAMP, IL6, and PSF standards. His initiatives around “Ultra-Secure AI” and agentic collaboration platforms are positioning Cisco as a trusted AI partner for government and regulated industries. An expert in LLM productization, Responsible AI, and agent-based architectures, Francis has scaled AI systems with multi-model support (OpenAI, Claude, Cisco-native models), achieving over 5x cost efficiency in key use cases. He has overseen delivery across AI-driven collaboration features, including real-time Vidcast personalization, semantic graph search, topic analytics, and multi-modal assistants—impacting revenue growth and daily productivity for millions of enterprise users. Prior to Cisco, Francis founded Piot Networks, an IoT platform company, and held senior product roles at Purple Communications, InFocus, Huawei, and ShoreTel. He began his career in software engineering with Alcatel and Cisco, building VoIP and communication systems. Francis holds an MBA in Finance & Strategy from Santa Clara University, an MS in Software Management from Carnegie Mellon University, and a BE in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Madras. He is a named inventor on multiple AI/ML patents and is recognized for driving zero-to-one innovation at the intersection of product strategy, AI safety, and large-scale execution.

  • Cisco

    Frank Meoni

    Solutions Engineer

    Frank Meoni is a seasoned software developer with over 20 years of experience spanning e-commerce, automotive, and messaging industries. For the past five years, he has served as a Solutions Engineer at Cisco, helping wholesale and enterprise clients maximize the value of the Webex Connect CPaaS platform. Frank specializes in designing and delivering scalable messaging workflows that power real-time customer engagement across channels like SMS, RCS, and MMS. He holds degrees in Physics, Data Science, and a Master’s in Artificial Intelligence. When he's not building enterprise-grade software, Frank enjoys building DIY projects way outside his skill set like custom tiki bars and water features.

  • Cisco

    Gabriele Innocenti

    Collaboration Solutions Engineer

    Gabriele Innocenti is a Collaboration Solutions Engineer at Cisco, supporting the Commercial and SMB segments in Italy and Austria. Over the past six years, he has been part of the Cisco Collaboration organization, with a focus on helping customers and partners adopt Webex solutions to drive hybrid work, seamless collaboration, and business transformation. Gabriele works closely with sales teams and end users to design integrated experiences based on Webex, tailored to the needs of growing businesses, with a deep expertise in Webex Events and Webinars. Before joining Cisco, Gabriele studied at the University of Pisa, Technische Universität Berlin, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Outside of work, he is passionate about Lindy Hop dancing and the German language, and he enjoys spending time hiking around the globe.

  • Cisco

    Gaurav Khanna

    AI Executive

    Dr. Gaurav Khanna is an AI Executive at Cisco Systems. During his 25 year career at Cisco, he has had many roles including managing early-in-career SE programs and founding the first data science and machine learning team in Sales. His team pioneered the use of predictive and generative AI systems in Sales at Cisco. In his current role, he is focused on guiding customers on their overall AI strategy and business transformation. He is also active fostering strategic partnerships within Cisco and the industry. Teaching and mentoring students has long been a passion; he currently teaches a popular foundational AI/ML course at Stanford Continuing Studies and travels frequently to speak about AI in industry forums. In his spare time, he loves to travel, hike in National Parks, and read about history, finance, and is a “math enthusiast”. Originally from New York, he has been a long-time resident of San Jose, CA, with his wife and two teenage children. He received his B.S. in Physics from Yale and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford University.

  • Cisco

    Guilherme Camelo

    Software Engineer

    I am a Software Engineer at Cisco with 6 years of experience specializing in Cisco RoomOS video devices. Over the course of my career, I have contributed to a wide range of RoomOS features, including xAPI, UI Extensions, Macros, Embedded Apps, Web Views, and more. Most recently, I was project lead for the Remote Access feature, working with a cross functional team to ensure quality and enhance user experiences. I am passionate about sharing my knowledge to help others fully leverage Cisco's collaboration technologies and discover how our products can transform the way people connect and work.

  • Cisco

    Hannah Berke

    Customer Success Leader

    As the dedicated Customer Success Leader for Vidcast, I am deeply committed to guiding organizations through the transformative adoption of asynchronous video communications. My journey with Vidcast began during its beta phase in September 2021, and it has been a remarkable experience to witness and contribute to its growth and evolution. I am most passionate about empowering customers through education, coupled with fostering dynamic and enduring relationships.

  • Cisco

    Hussain Ali

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    Hussain Ali (CCIE# 38068 - VOICE, COLLAB) is a Technical Marketing Engineer/Technical Leader in the Collaboration Technology Group at Cisco Systems. He is responsible for all Unified Communications services and applications on the ISR, Catalyst 8300 & virtual routing platforms like Cisco Unified Border Element (CUBE), Cloud Calling solutions such as Webex Calling, call recording, Direct Routing with Microsoft Phone System, and Webex Contact Center. He provides architectural design guidance for unified communication services and solutions to enterprise customers, service providers, Cisco sales force, and Cisco partners. He works directly with the product management and engineering teams in strategizing future product development to meet customer needs. Before joining this group, he led the Multiservices Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) team in Richardson, TX, troubleshooting and diagnosing some of the largest Cisco Collaboration deployments.

  • Cisco

    Irek Tarasek

    Technical Consulting Engineer

    With over nine years of experience in the collaboration technology space, I bring deep technical expertise and a passion for helping customers succeed. I began my career as a TAC engineer, spending five years supporting on-premises collaboration solutions such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), Cisco Unity Connection (CUC), IM&P, Jabber, and CUBE. I then transitioned to the Cloud Collaboration team, where for the past four years I have focused on Webex and Cisco Endpoints. I earned my CCIE Collaboration certification in 2019. In addition to my technical roles, I have played an active part in knowledge sharing, providing numerous internal training sessions and delivering technical presentations for partners during TAC workshops. My goal is to empower partners and customers to maximize the potential of their collaboration technologies.

  • Cisco

    Ishan Sambhi

    Solutions Engineer

    Ishan Sambhi is a Technical Solutions Architect in Collaboration at Cisco Systems and holds CCIE Collaboration, RHCE and VCP certifications. He has over 14 years of experience supporting different verticals such as large financials, healthcare and Web scale accounts with expertise in Cisco collaboration On-prem and cloud products. Ishan was previously a part of Cisco's Services team and worked as an End to End collaboration lead supporting Collaboration teams on escalations and support issues.

  • Cisco

    James Arias

    Senior Product Manager

    James Arias is a 30-year technology veteran and is currently a Senior Product Manager in the extended Webex Calling team. In his current role, James helps customers and partners build upgrade and cloud migration strategies, while also overseeing a lot of what makes Collaboration solutions tick ... simplified appliances, server/OS/virtualization support, scalable architectures, upgrade improvements and business continuity solutions. Before joining the product team, James was in technical sales for Cisco contact center applications, and prior to Cisco held various positions supporting legacy and IP networks, network management applications and call center systems. James likes to leverage this broad experience to help customers tackle complexity and create actionable strategies to reach their goals. James attended the University of South Florida and lives in central Florida with his wife and two daughters. When he's not working, you'll find him gaming or following his favorite volleyball teams (Go Valks!).

  • Cisco

    Janani Ramakrishnan

    Product Lead, Webex Contact Center

    Janani is a Product Lead at Webex Contact Center managing Supervisor Experiences and the reporting/analytics platform for Contact Center. She is currently helping transform the supervisors role from an operational manager to that of a leader using AI powered insights, state-of-the-art capabilities, and agile user experiences. Janani is an experienced product leader across various domains such as business platforms, identity management, network intelligence and server grade computing. Janani has an MBA from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech.

  • Cisco

    Jerad Cockroft

    Solutions Engineer

    Jerad Cockroft is a solutions engineer specializing in Contact Center and Customer Experience, with over 15 years of expertise in Cisco contact center and collaboration environments. Jerad has extensive experience designing, deploying, and supporting both large and small contact centers, leveraging his skills across on-premises and cloud-based solutions. Now in his 9th year at Cisco, Jerad's passion for integrating people, business, and technology was first sparked during his time as a Cisco customer. He has since applied this enthusiasm across a wide range of industry verticals, including public sector, healthcare, commercial, and financial services.

  • Cisco

    Joe Hughes

    Solutions Engineer

    Joe is a Collaboration Solutions Engineer in Cisco's Global Enterprise group, bringing 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, including 15 years at Cisco. He began his career at Tandberg TAC before moving into technical training and later gained valuable hands-on experience by building out the distance education department at a major university. Throughout his career, Joe has worked across a variety of industry verticals—including SMB, government, healthcare, legal, education, and some of the world’s largest enterprise companies—always putting the customer and user experience first. In addition to his extensive background in networking, video devices, and room design, Joe is a self-taught programmer and currently serves as the lead developer for the Video Room Calculator.

  • Cisco

    Joe Martini

    Customer Delivery Engineering Technical Leader

    Joe Martini is a Technical Leader in the Unified Collaboration group within the Customer Experience (CX) TAC at Cisco Systems. Joe holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Networking and System Administration from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and CCIE Collaboration (#35601) certification. Since 2007 at Cisco, Joe has become a global point of contact for Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM), IP phones (enterprise/multiplatform), and Webex Calling (WxC). He is also recognized as an innovator with the creation and development of many internal and external tools that solve problems, reduce effort, and save time.

  • Cisco

    Joe Wong

    Solutions Engineer

    Joe Wong is a Solutions Engineer that focuses on the whole customer experience and engagement, including those who manage and use the technology. He has 20+ years of contact center experience with 16 years focused on Cisco solutions and was recently recognized as a Cisco Distinguished Speaker. He was a Solutions Architect with Cisco's Contact Center Delivery Team for 8 years handling critical enterprise accounts and strategic engagements specializing in complex environments before joining Cisco Sales Engineering in 2022. Prior to Cisco, he has been a customer twice and part of our partner ecosystem. Joe's expertise encompasses the entire Contact Center portfolio, large and small, with more recent blending of modern and exciting opportunities using AI services, digital channels, and other cloud solutions. With an extensive background in design, delivery, and support in both customer experience architecture and applications, he is constantly looking for optimizations and improvements around the customer, agent, and administrator experiences.

  • Cisco

    Joe Zanini

    Webex Developer Relations Engineer

    A proud Bay Area resident and California Central Valley native, I kicked off my academic journey at Laney College, earning my AS-T in Mathematics in 2017 before heading to UC Santa Cruz for a B.A. in Computer Science (Banana Slug for life!). My path led me to the fast-paced world of cybersecurity sales at Qualys, where I honed my skills in connecting people and technology. Since 2022, I've been at Cisco as a Webex Developer Evangelist/Developer Relations Engineer, where I get to work with some of the brightest minds in the industry. My day-to-day? Collaborating with third-party developer partners to build innovative apps for the Webex App Hub—and turning those experiences into hands-on educational content. Whether it's presenting at Cisco Live, hosting webinars, or sharing insights on the Webex Developer Portal, my mission is to empower developers to create what’s next for collaboration. When I'm not building bridges between devs and the future of work, you’ll probably find me exploring new nerd hobbies like MTG or chasing the next big tech trend.

  • Cisco

    Johannes Krohn

    Principal Technical Marketing Engineer

    Johannes Krohn joined Cisco System in Germany in 2000. In his over 30 years of experience in the networking and telecommunication industry he worked in several IT companies gaining knowledge in engineering, system design and technologies from ATM to multiprotocol networking. In the last 20+ years he mainly focussed on IP telephony, Unified Collaboration and on-premise and cloud based collaboration solutions. As Technical Marketing Engineer working on Collaboration System Architectures he provides design guidance in key projects and is responsible to transferring new product information of Cisco Collaboration Solutions to audiences internally and externally. Technology focus areas include call routing architectures, collaboration architecture simplification and cloud collaboration. As part of the continuous development cycle he is providing input to the system level planing of future solutions. He holds a CCIE Voice.

  • Cisco

    Jonathan Cook

    Senior Product Manager

    Jonathan has been with Cisco for 10+ years with 8+ of those years being in product management. He's been in the CX space for 3 years focused on improving the administrator experience and reducing the time to value by delivering self service trials, multiple subscriptions per customer, automated voice/digital provisioning, and a completely revamped + flexible access control solution. Jonathan enjoys talking to customers and partners about how we can improve the product to make the admininstrators life easier. He's presented at industry events in the past and looks forward to connecting!

  • Cisco

    Josue Jonathan Vizcaino Huape

    Technical Consulting Engineer - Team Lead

    Josue Vizcaino is a Technical Consulting Engineer at Cisco, with over 24 years of experience in the IT industry and 7 years at Cisco. As a Team Leader in the Cloud Collaboration TAC in RTP, North Carolina, Josue plays a key role in driving technical excellence and process improvements within the Technical Assistance Center (TAC). He is also a Cisco Live speaker, sharing his expertise with a global audience through technical breakout sessions and hands-on labs. Passionate about knowledge sharing and mentorship, Josue has led chalk talks, training sessions, and workshops covering a range of networking topics, including Webex and Hybrid Services. He is actively involved in multiple initiatives aimed at enhancing TAC processes, ensuring efficiency and continuous improvement in customer support and troubleshooting. Josue holds a Master of Science in Computer Networking and multiple industry certifications, including ITIL v3 Foundations, Cisco Meraki Network Associate, and Google Apps Certified Administrator.

  • Cisco

    Justin Jordan

    Senior Product Manager

    Justin Jordan has been at Cisco for almost 15 years in many different roles. Currently he is a Senior Product Manager inside the Business Unit covering Cisco's Webex Suite applications. Justin enjoys spending time with our partners and customers and you have probably had a chance to see him present on many different webinars, Webex One's, and Cisco Live's. Justin's passion is Collaboration, and he loves showing the great things that Cisco brings to the market for our customers. Justin lives in the Texas Hill Country with his wife and pug Winston. He enjoys Flying, Golf, and legacy arcading.

  • Cisco

    Kesava Krishnan Madavan

    Software Engineer

    I am a Software Engineer with over nine years of experience, including the past four years at Cisco Systems, India, where I'm part of the Developer Experience team. I build and deliver features for WxMeetings, WxCalling, and the WxContact Center Web SDK, helping make life easier for developers. I'm passionate about JavaScript, Git, and building AI-powered applications on large language models (LLMs). I am also the APJC Lead for a Cisco internal mentorship program and am exploring my career path towards Engineering Management. Outside of work, I love running and driving.

  • Cisco

    Kevin Ian Barrow

    Technical Marketing Engineer Leader

    Kevin Ian Barrow is a Technical Marketing Engineering Leader within Cisco's Collaboration Technology Group Solutions Team, where he focuses on integrations with Cisco's collabaration product portfolio. With deep technical expertise and a strategic mindset, Kevin plays a key role in driving the adoption and integration of Cisco's collaboration technologies.

  • Cisco

    Kevin Simpson

    Solutions Manager

    Kevin Simpson is a Solutions Manager with the Webex Contact Center, where he passionately channels his enthusiasm for innovation, education, and enablement. He has earned a reputation for his remarkable ability to demystify complex concepts, transforming advanced topics into accessible and engaging content for individuals who are eager to learn and expand their knowledge.

  • Cisco

    Krishna Tyagi

    Technical Leader

    Krishna Tyagi is a Technical Leader and AI Practitioner at Cisco in a global role, specializing in Customer Experience and AI Solution consulting, with a focus on our Cloud Webex Contact Center and AI solutions. With 20 years of expertise in SaaS and On-Prem Contact Center solutions, he is at the forefront of AI adoption, product innovation, and cloud transformation, empowering businesses to navigate the evolving CCaaS landscape and maximize the value of their CX investments. Krishna collaborates with various customer stakeholders and leadership, channel partners, and system integrators, providing strategic advisory and business consulting to drive AI-powered customer engagement. As a distinguished Cisco Live speaker he regularly shares his insights on AI, CX, and the future of customer interactions at global industry events. A GenAI enthusiast and innovation leader, Krishna is Cisco Certified Customer Success Manager and Business Analyst and holds a Cisco Generative AI Blue Belt certification. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering and a certificate in Executive Leadership from Cornell University.

  • Cisco

    Kristin Harvey

    Product Design Director, Control Hub

    Kristin Harvey is Director of Product Design and leads the Webex Control Hub design team. With over 20 years of experience spanning non-profits, finance, and technology, she brings a sharp eye for authentic, human-centered experiences that transform how people connect and work. Known for turning frustrations into opportunity, Kristin uses strategic pivots to drive lasting impact. She’s passionate about connecting teams across disciplines, building trust with customers, and shaping design at scale.

  • Cisco

    Kriti Jain

    Product Manager

    I’m a Product Manager with over 7 years of experience at Cisco. I hold an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and bring a passion for solving complex problems with creative, user-focused solutions. My expertise spans end-to-end product management, from strategy to execution.

  • Cisco

    Luca Pellegrini

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    Luca Pellegrini is a Technical Marketing Engineer at Cisco, specializing in Collaboration technologies. He joined Cisco over 20 years ago as a Systems Engineer, supporting customers and partners in designing network and security architectures. He later moved into the Collaboration Technology Group, where he focuses on APIs, machine learning, and AI/LLMs to help customers automate, customize, and integrate their collaboration solutions.

  • Cisco

    Luis Garcia Delgado

    Technical Marketing Engineer - Technical Leader

    Luis Garcia is a Technical Marketing Engineer Technical Leader at Cisco, specializing in Webex Contact Center and Collaboration solutions. With over a decade at Cisco, Luis began his career as a Technical Consulting Engineer in TAC, supporting both Contact Center and Telepresence technologies. He later served as Technical Team Lead for the TelePresence TAC team, focusing on Expressway, RoomOS endpoints, and CMS. His expertise spans cloud collaboration, video conferencing, and enterprise communications. Luis holds a range of Cisco and industry certifications, including CCNA Voice, CCNA R&S, CCNP Collaboration, CCIE Collaboration, CCNA DevNet, AWS Solutions Architect Associate, and ITIL v4.

  • Cisco

    Luis Ramirez

    CX TAC Technical Leader Webex Calling

    Luis Ramirez: Cisco TAC Technical Leader & Advocate for Excellence in Webex Calling As the current Technical Leader for Cisco's TAC in Webex Calling Technology, Luis has been at the vanguard of enhancing global support capabilities and refining the Webex Calling experience for customers and engineers alike. With a career spanning over 16 years within Cisco TAC, Luis brings a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of Cisco Collaboration products to the forefront of technological innovation. At the heart of Luis's work is a passion for mentorship. By dedicating a significant portion of time to guide and nurture the skills of TAC engineers, Luis ensures that the next generation of technical support is prepared to meet the complex demands of modern collaboration solutions. This commitment to excellence extends beyond team development, as Luis actively contributes to the improvement of product serviceability. Renowned for expertise in complex hybrid Collaboration implementations, Luis plays a pivotal role in assisting customers as they transition to cloud-based solutions. This expertise is underpinned by a ten-year mastery of the CCIE Collaboration Certification #40952, a testament to Luis's dedication and skill in the field. Driven by an unwavering commitment to instigate positive change, Luis is instrumental in elevating the Webex Calling Offer. Through a focus on customer support and service enhancement, Luis not only addresses current needs but also paves the way for a more innovative and reliable future in cloud collaboration. #Teacher #Pioneer

  • Cisco

    Matt Jordy

    Principal Technical Marketing Engineer

    Matt Jordy is a Principal Technical Marketing Engineer in the Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration Group at Cisco. He focuses on both on-premises and cloud security, architectures, and design. He provides technical design and deployment guidance for collaboration solutions to the Cisco sales force as well as Cisco customers and partners around the world.

  • Cisco

    Matt Sommer

    Solutions Engineer

    Matt Sommer is a Solutions Engineer at Cisco with over 24 years of experience in the IT industry. He has been in various pre-sales engineering roles at Cisco for 15 years. He is passionate about helping customers create collaborative and dynamic, future-proofed workplaces for their employees. This expertise has benefited clients across diverse sectors, including healthcare, financial, retail and manufacturing. Prior to joining Cisco, he served as a Network Architect at Fortune 500 companies. Matt holds both a B.S. and M.S. from Saginaw Valley State University and, notably, is the holder of a collaboration-related patent. Fun fact: Matt enjoys music production as a hobby.

  • Cisco

    Mina Yoo

    Product Design Lead

    Mina Yoo is an accomplished product design leader with over 15 years of experience in the technology industry, including more than seven years designing Webex products. As the driving force behind user experience for Control Hub over the past five years, Mina has been dedicated to delivering a seamless "Single Pane of Glass" for Webex administrators. Her expertise extends to spearheading the development of next-generation analytics and insight tools powered by AI, shaping innovative solutions at the forefront of Silicon Valley.

  • Cisco

    Mykola Danylchuk

    Technical Consulting Engineer

    Mykola is a Collaboration Engineer with 10 years of industry proficiency, currently working as a TAC Support Engineer for Webex Contact Center. His role involves ensuring top-tier customer experiences, resolving complex issues, and actively engaging in escalation processes. He is one of the contributors to annual Cisco Live, Partner Summits and Troubleshooting Summits, providing valuable education to customer and partners on how to troubleshoot issues within the Webex Contact Center.

  • Cisco

    Niket Shah

    Solutions Engineer

    Niket has 14 years of experience in Cisco Unified Communications, UCaaS, and Data Center. Prior to his current role , he worked with Cisco cloud managed services as a technical architect for white glove cloud uc offerings for banks & service providers , as a technical lead for TAC for the UC team. Niket holds a CCIE in Collaboration, Master in Microlectronics , Bachelors in Electronics, Bachelors in Telecommunications engineering . He is currently a Solutions Engineer focused on collaboration for global enterprise with focus on cloud calling, contact center architectures and hybrid work.

  • Cisco

    Owen Mettam

    Technical Consulting Engineer (TAC)

    Owen Mettam is a Technical Consulting Engineer (TAC) with five years of experience at Cisco, specializing in collaboration technologies. As a key member of the Cisco Webex Meetings team, Owen Mettam has focused on enhancing the Webex App, Control Hub, and Meetings experiences to deliver seamless and user-friendly solutions. In their role, Owen Mettam is deeply involved in managing escalations and driving user interface and user experience improvements for Webex Control Hub, ensuring optimal performance and usability. Additionally, they have established themselves as a video content creator, producing impactful educational and technical content on Webex Control Hub, Single Sign-On (SSO), and Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) integrations on the Cisco YouTube and Video portal. Their work has empowered users to navigate and leverage Webex's advanced features with confidence.

  • Cisco

    Padmini Krishnan

    Product Manager

    Padmini Krishnan is a Product Manager for Webex Contact Center, focused on Agent Experiences and the AI Assistant for agents. She previously led product initiatives in the Webex Devices group, where she helped develop next-generation collaboration hardware and deepen platform integrations. Prior to her transition into product management, Padmini spent seven years as a software engineer. She holds a Master’s degree in Computer Networks from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.

  • Cisco

    Paul Giralt

    Distinguished Engineer

    Paul Giralt, CCIE R&S, CCIE Voice, CCIE Collaboration #4793, is a Distinguished Engineer in Cisco's Security and Trust Organization (S&TO) focused on network infrastructure security. He has spent much of his career helping customers accelerate the adoption of Cisco technologies and solutions, working with Cisco's largest collaboration deployments and working closely with engineering on improving product serviceability and cross-architecture product integrations. Paul has spent years designing, troubleshooting and diagnosing issues on some of the largest and most complex Cisco Collaboration deployments. He is also the author multiple Cisco Press collaboration titles, an IETF contributor, holds numerous patents, and is a member of the Cisco Live Distinguished Speaker Hall of Fame Elite.

  • Cisco

    Paul Stojanovski

    Principal Engineer

    Paul is a Principal Engineer at Cisco working within the Customer Experience organization supporting Webex solutions. He focuses his time on multiple areas such as driving Webex product serviceability for customers, building innovation for TAC case opening tools, and helping drive global TAC support strategy. He has spent his entire professional career working with Collaboration and Webex. In Collaboration, he worked as a TAC engineer supporting the on-premise Collaboration portfolio primarily focused on Immersive and Mobile and Remote Access. He has been involved in Webex support for nine years and was responsible for bringing Webex support in alignment with the global CX support teams. Currently, he focuses most of his effort on the Webex administration experience working with the Webex Control Hub and Webex Identity. He is passionate about driving change within Webex products to help bring better serviceability and self-service capabilities to customers, partners, or anyone using the products. He is also a Cisco Live Hall of Fame Distinguished Speaker.

  • Cisco

    Phil Bellanti

    Senior Developer Evangelist

    Phil Bellanti is a Senior Developer Evangelist on the Cisco Webex team, based in Orlando, Florida. Phil has been involved in the cloud-API space since 2007 and joined Cisco in 2015 through their acquisition of real-time communications API provider, Tropo. In his current role, Phil is involved with creating and presenting content for Webex developer enablement, including webinars, tech talks, workshops, hackathons, and other live events. Additionally, Phil enjoys writing how-to blogs, creating newsletters, and networking with the dev community.

  • Cisco

    Preetham Kademada

    Solutions Engineer

    Preetham Kademada is a seasoned Solutions Engineer with over 23 years of experience in the contact center and customer experience space. His expertise spans the full lifecycle of customer engagement, from design and architecture to delivery and long-term support. For eight years, Preetham led professional services teams specializing in complex Cisco Contact Center deployments, working with critical enterprise accounts and driving strategic initiatives in demanding environments. Since 2021, he has been part of the Cisco Sales Engineering, focusing on partner success and scalable customer solutions. Preetham's technical depth covers the entire Contact Center portfolio—ranging from traditional platforms to cutting-edge AI services and digital engagement channels. With a strong foundation in collaboration technologies, network architecture, and customer experience applications, he is passionate about helping organizations modernize and optimize their customer engagement strategies. Driven by outcomes, Preetham is known for his ability to translate complex technical challenges into clear, effective solutions—always keeping the customer and partner experience at the center of his approach.

  • Cisco

    Raad Al-Jawahiry

    Cloud Contact Center Engineer

    Hi, I’m Raad Al-Jawahiry, a Cloud Contact Center Engineer at Cisco Meraki. I specialise in designing and implementing intelligent customer engagement solutions. My focus is on helping Cisco Meraki organisation streamline support operations and deliver smarter, more responsive customer experiences through cloud-native platforms. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to speak at Cisco Live EMEA 2025, where I presented "AI Powered ChatBots & Virtual Assistants in Cisco Contact Centre"—a session that explored practical ways to deploy AI-powered agents and automation in high-volume environments. At WebexOne, I’m excited to lead a hands-on lab: "From Zero to AI: Building Your Webex AI Agent from Scratch." This session is all about rolling up our sleeves and giving you the practical skills to build, test, and deploy a Webex AI Agent—whether you're starting fresh or looking to level up your current implementation.

  • Cisco

    Rafat Kuraishi

    Systems Architect

    Rafat is a seasoned Systems Architect at Cisco Systems, holding dual CCIE certifications in Voice and Collaboration technologies. With over 15 years of experience, he has been instrumental in designing and supporting solutions for diverse verticals, including large financial institutions, healthcare organizations, and Hyperscaler accounts. Rafat specializes in Cisco's collaboration portfolio, spanning both on-premises and cloud solutions, and brings a wealth of expertise in driving successful deployments and troubleshooting complex environments. Previously, he served as a Collaboration Architect in Cisco's Advanced Services team, where he helped customers optimize their collaboration ecosystems. Additionally, his tenure as a TAC engineer provided him with deep technical insights and hands-on experience in resolving critical customer issues.

  • Cisco

    Rajamani Nallakaruppan

    Solutions Engineer / TSA

    Rajamani Nallakaruppan is a Collab Solutions Engineer / Technical Solutions Architect with the Cisco Collaboration Experience Program (CCEP) Team. He works with the Collaboration Pre-Sales team and his area of expertise includes Webex Calling, Webex Dedicated Instance(DI), Webex Contact Center and Webex Devices. Prior to joining the Cisco Sales team, Rajamani was an End to End Collaboration Lead (Technical Consulting Engineer) for the Technical Services (CX) Organization, based out of Research Triangle Park (RTP) North Carolina office. Rajamani holds a Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the Anna University, Chennai, India. Rajamani has worked across Cisco Unified Communications Manager, UC Applications TAC team(s). Rajamani transferred to the Cisco Research Triangle Park (RTP) North Carolina in 2015 from Cisco Systems India. Since 2010, Rajamani has become an expert in Webex Calling, Webex app, Webex Dedicated Instance, Cisco Jabber, Cisco Jabber VDI / VXME, Cisco IM and Presence Server, IP Communicator, and CUCI-Lync, Cisco Unified Attendant Console. Rajamani has presented multiple times in previous Cisco Live events.

  • Cisco

    Rajitha Kantheti

    Solutions Engineer

    Rajitha Kantheti is a Solutions Engineer within Webex Solutions Developer Team, Global Center of Excellence. She specializes in building cross-architecture solutions using Webex programmability to help businesses solve complex collaboration challenges. With a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Clemson University, Rajitha brings a strong technical foundation and a passion for innovation. Over the past four years at Cisco, she has developed a wide range of customer-facing and internal solutions using Webex APIs, SDKs, Webex devices, and CPaaS technologies. She also regularly delivers technical guidance and enablement to both internal teams and customers.

  • Cisco

    Richard Murphy

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    Richard Murphy is a Technical Marketing Engineer and a Technical Leader within the Cisco Collaboration Technology Group business unit. He is a member of the Webex Technical Marketing Engineering (TME) team, concentrating on the Webex Edge and Meetings services. This encompasses Edge Connect, Video Mesh, Edge Audio, Cisco Meeting Server, and Webex Meetings.

  • Cisco

    Roar Skomakerstuen

    Leader, Software Engineering

    Roar Skomakerstuen is a Software Engineering Leader in Cisco's Collaboration Technology Group, specializing in Room Intelligence. He has played a key role in developing advanced smart camera features for Cisco devices, including Speaker, Frames, PresenterTrack, and Cross-View. Roar also contributed to the introduction of Device Assistant and facial recognition capabilities for Cisco devices. Based in Norway, Roar joined Cisco in 2010 through the TANDBERG acquisition and has been a part of the video collaboration industry since 2001.

  • Cisco

    Robert Rogier

    Technical Leader

    Robert W. Rogier has been working on Cisco Contact Center for more than 20 years as an administrator, designer, TAC engineer, and now as a Technical Leader. He has worked with all flavors from contact center from Contact Center Express, Contact Center Enterprise, and Webex Contact Center. He specializes in Cisco's Digital Routing products, Enterprise Chat and Email and Webex Connect as well as Cisco Provisioning product, Contact Center Management Portal. After working in Contact Center TAC as an engineer, Robert now works with global CX teams helping to train new engineers, reviewing issues, and helping work with the engineering team to improve product quality and serviceability. In his time outside of work, Robert enjoys spending time with his spouse, is an avid fan of Formula 1.

  • Cisco

    Rue Green

    Sr. Solution Engineer

    Rue Green is a Sr. Solutions Engineer and has been working in the development, networking and cloud industry for over 30 years. Rue joined Cisco in 2006 focusing on Contact Center and Collaboration Technology. During his 19 years at Cisco, Rue has worked in different roles including CX, Sales and Management creating deep trusted relationships with Cisco's largest Contact Center customers. Rue has published the only Cisco Press book on Cisco Customer Voice Portal and is a distinguished speaker for Cisco Live with over 8+ distinguished speaker awards placing him into the Distinguished Speaker Hall of Fame. Rue holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics. Rue also hold four CCIEs in Enterprise Infrastructure, Collaboration, Voice and the newly announced Automation. Rue is also a certified full stack software developer focusing on MEAN and MERN stack and has developed several live SaaS solutions in production today. In his free time, Rue is a retired professional beach volleyball player, coaching and playing with youth players to help grow the sport. He is also an avid outdoors man living in Colorado spending his summers hunting and fishing in the Rocky Mountains.

  • Cisco

    Sara Macias Salete

    Collaboration Solutions Engineer

    Sara is a Solutions Engineer focused on Collaboration interoperability and competition. She is part of the Global Collaboration Center of Excellence in Cisco, providing pre-sales support to the field, partners and customers worldwide. In the last years, she has been heavily involved in the Cisco Call for Microsoft Teams integration, and she is also an expert in video interoperability between Cisco devices and Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google. She has participated in multiple Cisco Live and WebexOne events as a speaker and lab instructor, earning the Distinguished Instructor award this year. Sara joined Cisco 12 years ago after completing her BSc and MSc in Telecommunications Engineering in Madrid. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, travelling and tasting wine.

  • Cisco

    Scott Kiewert

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    Scott Kiewert is a Technical Marketing Engineer in the Collaboration Technology Group at Cisco. He currently focuses on all aspects of Webex security but has a special interest in identity, authentication, and authorization. He assists customers with design guidance and troubleshooting Webex security concerns. Prior to his current role, he worked in TAC supporting Cisco Unified Communications Manager and IP phones.

  • Cisco

    Seble Mengesha

    Solutions Engineer

    Seble Mengesha is a Solutions Engineer with over six years of experience at Cisco, specializing in Collaboration technologies. Her recent work focuses on hybrid work strategies and transitioning public sector organizations from on-premises calling to the cloud. Before joining Cisco, Seble was with DC Government, where her focus was on advancing wireless technologies and smart city innovations. She is based in Rockville, Maryland.

  • Cisco

    Senthilkumar Thangavel

    Lead Engineer

    I am lead engineer at Cisco, known for their deep understanding of contact center reporting. I have spent my time Cisco leveraging platforms like Cisco Unified Intelligence Center and Live Data to empower businesses with the data they need to improve customer experience and operational efficiency. My work helps make sense of the vast amounts of information generated by modern contact centers.

  • Cisco

    Shadab Abbasi

    Systems Engineer

    Shadab Abbasi is a Systems Engineer, supporting customer experience solutions for Enterprise, Public Sector, and Commercial businesses in Canada. Since joining the company in 2007, Shadab has devoted himself to mastering Collaboration and Contact Center Technologies, carving a particular competence that has propelled him to the forefront of his profession. Shadab specializes in developing, installing, and supporting on-premise and cloud-based contact center solutions that leverage digital channels and AI services. He is constantly looking for ways to improve the experiences of IT executives, contact center representatives, and their end clients. Shadab holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree from India and a Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) certification in Collaboration and Enterprise Networking. With this comprehensive skill set and a passion for innovation, Shadab continues to redefine the boundaries of technological advancement, delivering transformative solutions that drive tangible business outcomes for his clients.

  • Cisco

    Shane Long

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    Shane Long is a Technical Marketing Engineer (TME) within the Cisco Collaboration Technology Group, focusing on all things Webex app. This includes deployment, best practices, integrations and AI. Prior to working on Webex, Shane mainly focused on Cisco Jabber. Shane began working at Cisco as part of collaboration engineering in 2007, and became a TME in 2012.

  • Cisco

    Shikhar Choudhary

    Technical Leader

    Shikhar Choudhary is a Technical Leader in TAC for Webex Contact Center. He has been working with and for Cisco for a stunning 16 years now and it has been all along in Collaboration technologies. Shikhar achieved CCIE# 29964 in Voice early in his career and just to challenge himself later, cleared CCIE Collaboration lab years after. In addition to that, he also holds CCNA,CCNP, Devnet among other certifications. He has expertise in most UC products Apart from being known for his in-depth technical knowledge globally, when he is not working, Shikhar spends his time exploring national parks with his family. Shikhar currently resides in RTP North Carolina.

  • Cisco

    Shrishail Doddalinganavar

    Cloud Engineering Technical Leader

    Shrishail Doddalinganavar is a Cloud Engineering Technical Leader with Webex Contact Center, specializing in solution-level technical escalations and complex customer integrations. As a subject matter expert (SME) in Webex Contact Center APIs, SDKs, and AI capabilities, Shrishail plays a pivotal role in helping customer-facing teams customize the product to meet specific use cases. He is passionate about enabling others through technical training, frequently engaging with internal teams, partners, and customers to drive adoption across the ecosystem.

  • Cisco

    Soundarya Muthuvel

    Engineering Product Manager

    Hello, I’m Soundarya Muthuvel, a Product Manager with a wide range of interests! I am currently part of the Developer Experience team for Webex Contact Center, focusing on third-party AI integrations. I lead the "Bring Your Own AI" initiative, helping customers and AI partners bring their AI solutions to the Webex platform.

  • Cisco

    Stefan Zeidenberg

    Solutions Engineer

    Stefan Zeidenberg helps lead CX strategy and innovation within Cisco’s Customer Experience Outcomes team, helping enterprise organizations modernize how they connect with customers through AI, automation, and digital channels. With over a decade of experience in conversational automation and conversational AI, Stefan is focused on driving intelligent front-door strategies that reduce friction, improve outcomes, and unlock new value across the customer journey. He works cross-functionally with customers, product, sales, and engineering to bring Cisco’s AI-powered solutions to life in the enterprise.

  • Cisco

    Steven Fly

    Technical Marketing Engineer

    Steven Fly is a Technical Marketing Engineer (TME) within Cisco’s Collaboration Technology Group focusing on Webex migrations, Webex Calling and Customer Assist. This includes transitioning from Jabber to the Webex App and/or from Unified CM to Webex Calling. He works closely with the product and engineering teams on the migration process and tools, Webex Calling features and the Customer Assist solution. Steven has 20+ years of experience with Cisco’s on-prem and cloud collaboration solutions. Prior to his TME role Steven was a Cisco CX Sr. Solution Architect and worked with over 50 global enterprises and large Service Providers as a trusted advisor for variety of technologies including networking and collaboration. He helped his customers develop and deploy a technology strategy, solution architectures and solution designs for a variety of technologies including complex networking, Unified Communications, TelePresence and Webex.

  • Cisco

    Sunny Akkera

    Senior Product Manager

    Sunny Akkera is a Senior Product Manager at Cisco, leading the strategy and development of Webex Calling Dedicated Instance. Based in Dallas, TX, Sunny brings deep expertise in both on-premises and cloud-based Cisco Calling solutions. With a strong focus on innovation and customer success, he is passionate about building best-in-class cloud calling experiences that meet the evolving needs of global enterprises. Sunny’s leadership has been instrumental in shaping scalable, reliable, and user-centric communication platforms within the Webex ecosystem.

  • Cisco

    Susan Parrish

    Webex Technical Enablement Specialist

    Susan Parrish is a seasoned training professional with over 20 years of experience in software and technology customer-management and training roles. She merges her extensive background in customer engagement with her knowledge of adult education to provide a relevant and practical perspective to adult learners in the tech industry. At Cisco, Susan designs and delivers courses for Webex solutions, leading hands-on lab sessions and classes that empower participants to deepen their technical skills through immersive, real-world learning experiences. Susan holds a Master’s Degree in Adult Education and a Community College Instruction Certificate from East Carolina University, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Management of Information Systems from the University of Mount Olive. Beyond her professional commitments, she enjoys spending time at the beach, tailgating at ECU football games, and performing in local community theater.

  • Cisco

    Tim Kratzke

    Technical Leader

    Tim Kratzke has been working on Cisco Telepresence products for over 13 years, ranging from Immersive video systems, video infrastructure such as Cisco Meeting Server (CMS) and Expressway, and for the past 7 years specializing in video endpoints. After working as a Telepresence TAC engineer, Tim now works with global CX teams training new engineers, building tools to aid in the troubleshooting process, and working with engineering to improve the serviceability of collaboration video endpoints. In his spare time Tim is an avid hockey fan and enjoys traveling and exploring new destinations.

  • Cisco

    Tore Bjolseth

    Senior Software Developer

    I've worked as a software oompa-loompa in the wonderful chocolate factory for video devices in Cisco Norway for 14 years. My passion is finding new, useful or weird use cases for these industry leading products, and so I've been part of the core team creating UI extensions, macros and the web engine on the devices. I'm a passionate integration evangelist and the maintainer of roomos.cisco.com. I love the free and democratic nature of browser based technology, which has allowed us to bring Workspace Designer to the market in short time. My greatest strength is combining creativity with software development and going the extra mile to create solutions that make people smile. Hope to see you on our training or the Workspace Designer booth on Webex One!

  • Cisco

    Vanesa Melendez

    Instructional Design & Training Specialist

    Started as a Resident Engineer for Broadsoft, and currently providing training for Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center at the Webex Academy. Panamanian graduated in Electronics Engineering with wide experience in the telecommunications field bringing more than a decade of experience to his current role. Now, she is dedicated to successfully guiding Partners and Customers to succeed in achieving their goals with Webex.

  • Cisco

    Vanessa Sulikowski

    Distinguished Solutions Engineer

    anessa Sulikowski is a Distinguished Solutions Engineer and has been working in the ICT industry for over 30 years. Vanessa joined Cisco in 2000 and pursued a specialisation in Collaboration Technology and is considered a Trusted Advisor for many organisations across the Asia Pacific region. Vanessa has presented at Cisco Live internationally since 2001 and she was inducted into the Distinguished Speaker Hall of Fame Elite. She has also presented at many other industry technology events such as InfoCom, Microsoft TechEd, JuiceIT, IBM Think, Wainhouse Summit, QuestNet, and Imagine. Vanessa is an evangelist for workforce experience and hybrid workplace transformation working with customers on their transformation projects as well as presenting at Workplace and Technology focused events WorkTech, ReWork, Flexible Working, Digital Workplace Summit, Future WorkTech, CoreNet and Real Property Vanessa holds a Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) degree from the University of Newcastle and has achieved Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) Voice.

  • Cisco

    Venky Yechuri

    Technical Projects Systems Engineer

    I have been working with Global Demo Engineering team over 10 years. Specialize in Collaborations demos both On-Prem and Webex.

  • Cisco

    Victor Vazquez

    Solutions Engineer

    Victor is a Collaboration Solutions Engineer within the global Webex Solutions Developer Group, Global Central of Excellence, where he supports customers worldwide. He specializes in building cross-architecture solutions that enable businesses to achieve their objectives. His journey at Cisco started as as a System Engineer, and evolved as he transitioned into a Collaboration specialist. Over the years, Victor has honed his expertise, particularly focusing on Contact Center and CPaaS (Communication Platform as a Service)

  • Cisco

    Wes Wiley

    Collaboration Solutions Engineer

    Wes is an established solutions engineer with over 25 years of technical experience in the collaboration industry. He has spent the last 15 years with Cisco, providing creative solutions for government and education customers. He is a multi year Cisco Live distinguished speaker and enjoys being able to interact with customers at events like Cisco Live and Webex One. In his spare time he is an active father to two boys, baseball coach, pontoon captain and amature radio operator.

PARTNER SESSION SPEAKERS

  • Cisco

    Alexa Trifilo

    Director, Solutions Engineering

    Dr. Alexa Trifilo is a Director of Engineering at Cisco, leading global partner sales engineering for the Collaboration business. She drives technical strategy, channel readiness, and partner innovation across Webex, CPaaS, AI, and collaboration devices. Known for blending deep technical knowledge with a focus on customer success, she builds high-performing, inclusive teams and advocates for equitable hiring practices backed by her doctoral research on bias reduction in hiring. Alexa was named to CRN’s Women of the Channel in 2023 for her leadership and impact in the tech channel.

  • Cisco

    Alexandra Zagury

    Vice President, Partner Performance & Experience, Global Partner Sales

    Alexandra Zagury Vice President, Partner Performance & Experience Global Partner Sales Cisco Alexandra Zagury is a seasoned global sales leader known for her prowess in building and driving growth across diverse markets. With a career spanning continents, she has pioneered new business ventures, led multi-disciplinary sales teams, and forged strategic partnerships to deliver innovative technology solutions. Currently, Alexandra leads the Partner Performance & Experience organization which drives growth for Cisco by developing partner capabilities across technologies and radically simplifying the partner experience. Previously, Alexandra led the Cisco/Splunk Partner Integration Centre and was responsible for orchestrating the integration of Cisco's $28B acquisition into the partner sales organization. She also served as Vice President of Cisco's Partner Managed and as-a-Service Sales organization, where she built and spearheaded the $9B+ partner managed business for the pivot to cloud and as-a-service. Under her leadership, her team set industry benchmarks for the MSP operating model, driving meaningful outcomes for partners and customers. In prior roles at Cisco, Alexandra led sales transformation efforts and was the COO for the Global Specialist Sales organization, enhancing operational capabilities across 10 technology specializations. As Vice President of Global Collaboration Sales Organization (GCSO), she drove sales for Cisco's Collaboration portfolio and empowered global seller and partner communities. Additionally, as Managing Director, EMEAR Channel Sales, she fostered innovative strategic partnerships to drive sales across key routes-to-market. Before her tenure at Cisco, Alexandra held executive positions at BlackBerry and Yahoo, where she oversaw sales, product, and marketing responsibilities across EMEA, the UK, Africa, and Turkey. Fluent in multiple languages and a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Alexandra's career has been marked by her ability to deliver results across diverse international markets, driving customer experiences and business success with her visionary leadership.

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    Andrew Cammer

    Leader, CX Center of Excellence

    Andrew Cammer is a global leader in Customer Experience (CX) Solutions and Agentic AI at Cisco, bringing over 25 years of industry expertise. He is dedicated to enabling large organizations to embrace innovative technologies and seamlessly integrate them into their customer transformation journeys. With a strong emphasis on delivering tangible business results, Andrew is committed to redefining how companies connect with their customers and empower their employees in the age of Agentic AI, with a strong belief that AI will make the customer experience more human.

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    Anthony Valladares

    Sr. Product Manager

    Anthony Valladares is a Senior Product Manager at Cisco, overseeing the Webex Wholesale Partner Success Program. Every day he energetically works with Cisco’s Partners to ensure their commercial success with Webex. He holds a BA in Economics from Duke University and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.

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    Brett Harrison

    Director, Collaboration Partner Sales

    Brett Harrison leads Go-to-Market Strategy for Cisco’s Global Collaboration Partner Sales organization. He is responsible for unifying Cisco’s partner motion across UCaaS, Contact Center, and Devices, working cross-functionally to accelerate adoption of Cisco Collaboration solutions through innovative enablement, demand generation, and investment strategies. Brett partners closely with Cisco business units, distributors, and resellers to grow Cisco’s $4B+ Collaboration business. He also leads the evolution of Cisco’s partner programs—including VIP, LCI, and Cisco 360—and oversees readiness for global launches across architectures. An 18-year Cisco veteran, Brett has held leadership roles in the Cisco Meraki Channels organization and Americas Distribution. He holds a Master’s in Information and Communication Sciences and a Bachelor’s in Multimedia Production from Ball State University. Based in Indianapolis, Brett is a private pilot who enjoys traveling and cooking with his wife and four children.

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    Chase Voisin

    Solutions Engineer

    Chase is a professional in the video, conferencing, and telephony industry, with over 20 years of experience, including 12 years at Cisco. He is part of the global video center of excellence at Cisco, where he collaborates with a small, dedicated team to develop advanced video room designs and implementations. The team tailors room designs to meet customer needs, addresses complex challenges from boardrooms to quiet rooms, and offers training to the broader AV industry on implementing Cisco and third-party solutions. His expertise also includes AI video-enabled conferencing and innovative camera layouts.

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    Cory Gray

    Solutions Engineering Manager

    Cory Gray is a CCIE in Enterprise Networking and Collaboration with over 16 years of experience at Cisco, helping organizations transform the way they connect, collaborate, and innovate. As the Video Devices and Collaboration Renewals Solutions Engineering Manager, Cory leads teams that design and deliver cutting-edge video and collaboration experiences tailored to customer needs. Known for blending deep technical expertise with real-world business insight, Cory's teams brings practical strategies and inspiring perspectives to help customers unlock the full potential of Cisco’s solutions.

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    Craig Tait

    Collaboration Solutions Engineer

    Craig is in his 25th year at Cisco, having held a variety of sales and partner-facing roles. Today, he helps Cisco's largest partners upscale their Collaboration practices while he evangelizes the power of Cisco's programmability story. Craig has been recognized for his innovative and educational demos and recently helped develop, coordinate, and host the Americas Partners Modern Workspaces Bootcamps. Born, raised, and remaining in Michigan, Craig enjoys spending time outdoors, playing in a working cover band, building pointless projects on single-board computer platforms, and of course, his wonderful family.

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    Darren Verette

    Director CX Center of Excellence

    Darren Verette is the Sales leader for Cisco's Global CX Center of Excellence - a team focused on impactful customer outcomes, compelling CX use-cases, and value-focused seller enablement. Darren's CX career spans three decades, partnering with some of the most recognizable thought-leaders in the CX industry.

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    David Beisly

    Systems Engineer, Leader

    David Beisly is a 15 year veteran of Cisco, having spent time in virtual engineering, generalist SE, upto 2020 where he joined the EMEA collaboration team. For the last 5 years he has been working on EMEA Collaboration Channel technical engagements, before recently moving into an SE Leadership role. He has a passion for collaboration technology & leadership. In his spare time he enjoys coaching basketball, spending time with his family & running.

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    Doug Hoffman

    Collaboration Leader

    Doug has been selling Cisco Collaboration for his entire career and grateful to spend the last 11 years within US Commercial at Cisco. He currently leads a team of Collaboration sellers with a high performance sales culture by constantly looking for new ways to level up and find a new competitive edge. Doug started his career in the partner organization and knows better than anyone how critical our trusted relationships are as we go to battle with our competitors. Doug has been married to his wife Carolyn for 13 years, has a 8 year old daughter (Sammy) and a 6 year old son (Ryan). They live in Rutherford, NJ (just 6 miles from NYC) and swears that the Jersey Shore is nothing like what you see on MTV.

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    Jim Josupait

    Partner Account Executive - Customer Experience

    Jim Josupait is a seasoned business development and technical solutions professional with over 15 years at Cisco Systems. As a Product Account Executive for Customer Experience, he specializes in partner sales enablement, onboarding for new specialization programs, and helping partners boost profitability. Jim also co-founded and co-hosts the successful Voice of Customer Experience webinar series. Previously, Jim held sales and engineering roles focused on Collaboration, providing technical leadership, comprehensive product demonstrations, and enablement sessions. He also helped plan and host the Cisco Collaboration Voice of the Engineer and Voice of the Account Manager series. Beyond his primary role, Jim is the co-founder and global lead of the Cisco Diabetes Network, an Employee Resource Group he established that now supports over 600 members worldwide. Jim holds an MBA in Marketing from DePaul University and a BS in Business Management from Purdue University. Outside of work, he is busy being an involved dad of 3 kids and goes to a lot of concerts in his spare time!

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    Katie Bard

    Senior Director, Collaboration Recurring Revenue Acceleration

    Katie Bard is the Senior Director of Collaboration Recurring Revenue Acceleration at Cisco, leading a global team focused on driving growth in the company's Collaboration renewal business. Known for her ability to align cross-functional teams, streamline sales operations, and empower talent, she brings a strong blend of strategic vision and operational discipline. With a career spanning several leadership roles across the tech sector, Katie is committed to business transformation, operational excellence, and mentoring future leaders. She is based in Idaho, where she enjoys life with her family and time outdoors.

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    Kristyn Hogan

    VP, Collaboration Partner Sales

    Kristyn Hogan leads Cisco’s Global Collaboration Partner Organization. Kristyn and her team are responsible for leading the strategy and execution across each of Cisco’s unique routes to market. Kristyn works closely with Cisco's regional partner organizations, Global Collaboration Sales Org (GCSO), business entities, and sales teams to accelerate partner adoption of Cisco Collaboration solutions, with a focus on delivering creative enablement, enticing demand generation offers, and rich partner profitability to drive growth across the $4.1B+ Collaboration business. Prior to this role, Kristyn led the Meraki Americas partner organization. Before her time at Meraki, she led collaboration partner sales within Cisco’s Americas Partner Organization (APO). Kristyn has been recognized on CRN’s Women of the Channel list for 2015-2024. She has a passion for developing Cisco’s future leaders, personally mentoring many individuals. Kristyn serves on the MD Anderson Cancer Center Advance Team Board along with the Executive Leadership Team for the American Heart Association Heart Ball.

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    Mark Giang

    Solutions Engineer

    Mark Giang is a Solutions Engineer in Cisco Global Collaboration Partner Sales organization. With a focus on partner global Go-to-Market strategies, Mark Giang leverages extensive expertise to drive collaboration and innovation. Over the past 13 years at Cisco, Mark Giang has built a robust career, initially starting as a Systems Engineer covering Service Provider routing and optical technologies, and for the last 6 years, specializing in Collaborations. Mark Giang deep technical knowledge and strategic insight is an asset to the team and a key contributor to Cisco success in the global market.

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    Mark Leone

    Partner Account Executive - CX

    Mark Leone is a member of Cisco's Global Collaboration Partner Sales team focused of the Channel Strategy & Go to Market for Customer Experience Solutions.

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    Michael Testa

    Senior Director of Sales

    I am a seasoned and committed leader with over 20+ years of experience in the technology industry with nearly 18 years at Cisco. I am currently serving as the Sr. Director of Global Sales with the privilege of leading US Commercial Collaboration Sales & Go To Market teams as part of the Global Collaboration Sales Organization (GCSO). I take pride in being a visionary leader with a proven track record of successfully leading organizations through periods of rapid change and growth. I have developed a deep understanding of the technology landscape and have a passion for innovation and creativity, which we can leverage together to drive business results and professional development. I believe in building impactful partnerships that lead to significant growth and expansion, with a strong focus on developing people as well as the businesses. I am committed and passionate about fostering a culture of inclusion, collaboration, creativity, and continuous improvement above all else.

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    Pratik Chanda

    Sales Leader, WW Collaboration GTM - MTR

    Pratik Chanda is the Worldwide Partner Sales Lead for Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) at Cisco, where he leads global partner strategy, enablement, and execution to scale Cisco’s MTR solutions across the Microsoft ecosystem. With nearly two decades of experience across Microsoft and Cisco, Pratik has successfully led cross-regional and global teams, driving transformation in collaboration technologies, partner go-to-market, and hybrid work innovation. In his current role, he collaborates closely with Microsoft, global system integrators, and channel partners to accelerate adoption of Cisco’s AI-powered devices for hybrid work—through co-selling motions, field activation, joint industry events, and partner-to-customer engagements. A passionate advocate for the convergence of AV and IT, Pratik is a frequent speaker at global forums, sharing insights on workspace transformation, the future of work, and the strategic role of partnerships in building future-ready environments.

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    Rajesh Rao

    Director - Product Management

    A seasoned product development leader with extensive experience driving innovation and delivering impactful solutions. Known for a strategic approach to product lifecycle management and a strong focus on aligning technology with market needs, including advanced AI capabilities to enhance product intelligence and automation. Currently, the focus is on accelerating growth through partnerships within the competitive UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) and CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) markets, with a particular emphasis on the SMB segment. This involves collaborating closely with partners to expand reach and enhance product offerings in these dynamic cloud communication spaces, leveraging deep technical expertise in cable, telco, and IT industries to address complex challenges and opportunities. Passionate about leveraging technology, including AI, to create value and foster business success, with a proven track record of leading teams to achieve ambitious goals in fast-paced, evolving industries. This blend of technical depth and strategic vision drives innovation and competitive advantage.

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    Rick Brewer

    Global Sales Director - Collaboration Devices Center of Excellence

    Rick leads the global sales and go-to-market strategy for Cisco’s Collaboration organization, with a focus on hardware technologies including video, phones, and headsets. He joined Cisco through acquisition on two occasions—first via video conferencing pioneer TANDBERG, and later as a co-founder of video bridging startup Acano. With over 27 years of experience in the communications industry, Rick has held leadership positions across Customer Service, Engineering, and Sales. Notably, he spent eight years focused on the U.S. Federal market, gaining deep expertise in navigating complex, high-stakes sales environments. In his current role, Rick is dedicated to delivering secure, integrated collaboration solutions that meet the evolving needs of Cisco’s global clients. His broad experience in the technology sector gives him a unique ability to understand customer challenges and craft innovative, results-driven strategies. Rick double-majored in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, and later graduated with distinction from the University of Manchester, UK, with an MBA in Finance.

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    Sachin Bagul

    Solutions Engineer

    Sachin is a Lead Solutions Engineer supporting our large Service Provider customers. He has over 20 years of experience in the collaboration industry, with expertise spanning Product Management, Marketing, and Pre-Sales roles. Sachin has played a key role in the launch and growth of the Webex Calling and Webex Contact Center platforms for our major Service Provider partners. Currently, he is collaborating with our CSP partners to leverage AI advancements to deliver enhanced value to mid-size enterprises and SMBs.

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    Sarah Meegan

    Collaboration Partner Sales Acceleration and Investments

    Sarah Meegan is the powerhouse Global Lead for Collaboration Partner Programs, renowned for igniting partner sales, unlocking high-impact investments, and inspiring the next generation of industry leaders. With over 15 years at the forefront of technology, Sarah has a proven track record of architecting bold, results-driven strategies that propel partners to new heights of growth and profitability. A trailblazer and sought-after influencer, Sarah thrives on building vibrant partner ecosystems and championing breakthrough programs that turn vision into value. Her unique blend of creativity—shaped by transformative roles in both the technology and entertainment industries—fuels her ability to disrupt traditional models and accelerate go-to-market innovation. Sarah’s relentless drive ensures partners are not just supported, but fully empowered to lead in dynamic, fast-changing markets. With deep expertise across the channel, including hands-on experience in distribution and partner organizations, Sarah is known for her fearless approach to navigating complexity and her knack for transforming insights into winning, outcome-based strategies. She is a magnetic leader, trusted advisor, and passionate advocate for investing in partner success. Dedicated to building a more inclusive industry, Sarah proudly serves on the Americas board for Women of Cisco, advancing diversity and championing the next wave of leaders. Based on the East Coast, Sarah brings her signature energy home, embracing every adventure with her two lively boys. Whether she’s racing to a practice, exploring new destinations, or diving into a new book, Sarah brings the same excitement and commitment to life as she does to her work.

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    Stephanie Ross

    Partner Solutions Engineer - Customer Experience

    Stephanie Ross is a Partner Solutions Engineer focused on Customer Experience. She has 20 years of experience in Contact Center / Customer Experience and Collaboration technologies and her career has seen her excel in diverse roles spanning Managed Services, Professional Services, Design/Architecture, Sales and GTM, predominantly working for Cisco Partners. Stephanie has a son, Luke, who is studying aerospace engineering, and she lives in Northern California with her treasured dog, Titan.

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    Steve Qin

    Solution Engineer

    Steve Qin is a Collaboration Solutions Engineer with over nine years of experience at Cisco’s American Partner Sales organization. His current role focuses on upscaling Cisco’s largest national partners’ collaboration practices with A/V integration and webex contact center specialties. Prior to joining Cisco, he spent decades at Nortel, Lifesize and Polycom as a Sales Engineer, with a focus on helping global enterprise customers build up their collaboration networks. Steve holds an MBA from Wilfrid Laurier University and an BS in electric engineering from XiDian University

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    Thomas Padjen

    Employee Experience Partner Strategy

    Thomas Padjen is a strategic leader driving global partner success within Cisco’s Employee Experience organization. With six years at Cisco—including through the CloudCherry acquisition—he brings deep expertise in collaboration technology and go-to-market strategy. Thomas previously led the global partner strategy for Cisco Collaboration Devices, scaling growth and adoption across key markets. In his current role, he leads global enablement, program development, and profitability initiatives that empower partners to deliver transformative employee experiences.

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    Tony Reyes

    Solutions Engineer - Collaboration

    Tony Reyes is a Cisco Solutions Engineer based in Texas, and has been focused on Collaboration technologies support Service Provider partners across the Americas during his time at Cisco.