Computerworld

Former switching chief McCool leaves Cisco

  • Jim Duffy (Network World)
  • 09 April, 2013 21:11

Cisco Senior Vice President John McCool, CTO of the enterprise segment and instrumental in data center fabric initiatives, has left the company after 17 years.

He will be succeeded by Tom Wilburn, who had been Cisco vice president of Unified Access sales and is steeped in mobility experience. Wilburn directed the sales integration of Cisco's $1.2 billion Meraki cloud Wi-Fi acquisition.

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"I can confirm that after 17 years at Cisco, John McCool has decided to leave the company to pursue new opportunities," a Cisco spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "John will be succeeded in his role leading the Enterprise Networking architecture by Tom Wilburn. Tom has over 30 years of sales experience, including eight years at Cisco, and he has deep experience in mobility, switching and routing. Most recently, Tom was Vice President of Unified Access Sales and the sales integration of Meraki."

Cisco says the Enterprise Networking architecture sales job is an overlay to its regional sales model, which shapes strategy for selling Cisco enterprise routing, switching and security products. Going forward that job will be split into two, with a separate sales leader for security, the company says.

That security sales leader will be Scott Lovett, another Cisco sales veteran of 19 years, Cisco says. He and Wilburn will report to Chuck Robbins, Cisco worldwide head of sales.

McCool switched to enterprise sales in a reorg in late 2011. He had been senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Core Technology Group, responsible for high-end switches and routers.

McCool was also head of Cisco's Data Center, Switching and Services group for several years, taking over for the departed Jayshree Ullal (now heading Arista Networks) and helping orchestrate strategies with Fibre Channel over Ethernet, virtualization, Nexus and Catalyst switching, and Unified Computing.

Jim Duffy has been covering technology for over 25 years, 21 at Network World. He also writes The Cisco Connection blog and can be reached on Twitter @Jim_Duffy.

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