John Growdon

John Growdon is the Sr. Director Data Center/Virtualization Sales at Cisco in their Worldwide Channels organization. In this role, Growdon and his team are responsible for the global development of Cisco’s go-to-market channel strategy and programs for their data center products.

Growdon brings over 24 years of industry experience in the networking and computer fields to Cisco. Prior to joining Cisco, Growdon worked at Hewlett-Packard for 11 years in roles that spanned manufacturing engineering, product management, marketing, and channel business development. Two of these years included an international assignment in Europe.

At Cisco, Growdon has worked in the Worldwide Channels organization for 13 years. His role began as the manager of the US Channel Product Management team and has expanded to a worldwide position encompassing the channel go-to-market strategy and programs for all routing, switching, and data center products. He and his team have developed and implemented new ground-breaking worldwide programs that drive Cisco partner community to upgrade legacy routing and switching products – providing Cisco’s partners and customers with significant value add. Growdon currently leads the development and execution of the data center channels go-to-market strategy and programs at Cisco. This effort has already resulted in the recruitment and enablement of several hundred highly specialized partners with a Data Center Architectural Practice. These partners have been a critical factor in the driving Cisco’s new data center technologies into the marketplace.

Outside of his Cisco responsibilities, Growdon was recently elected to the board of directors of MacLean Power Systems (MPS) in April 2011. MacLean Power Systems, a MacLean-Fogg Company, is a leading manufacturer of products used by utilities for building transmission and distribution lines and substations. MPS produces over 20,000 items for these markets.

Growdon earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology graduating with High Honors. He is fluent in French. He is married and resides in Menlo Park, California with his wife and three children.