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Rob Salvagno

Vice President

Corporate Development and Cisco Investments

In his role as VP of Corporate Development and Cisco Investments, Rob Salvagno is responsible for leading all M&A and venture capital investments for Cisco. He manages Cisco’s strategic venture capital which invests hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the start-up ecosystem, helping anticipate the next set of market transitions, align with disruptive technologies, gain visibility into key geographies, and partner for innovative solutions.

Since joining Cisco in 2001, Rob has challenged the traditional model of corporate development, implementing a holistic strategy to accentuate Cisco’s technology portfolio, instead of individual deals. He led the execution of the $1.2 billion acquisition of cloud networking leader Meraki, one of the most successful platform acquisitions in Cisco’s history, and the $3.7 billion acquisition of AppDynamics, cementing Cisco’s place in the business intelligence, analytics and IT operations market. Most recently, Rob engineered the $2.3 billion acquisition of Duo, the leading provider of unified access security and multi-factor authentication delivered through the cloud.

To optimize external innovation as a mechanism for Cisco’s growth, Rob pioneered the creation of Cisco Investments, one of the most active and entrepreneurial-focused models for corporate venture capital in the industry. He co-architected the spin-ins of Nuova Systems and Insieme, spurring Cisco’s growth in data center and software-defined networking, and led the formation of alpha projects to accelerate cross-company innovation. He also helped develop and accelerate new opportunities in China through the creation of several joint venture projects in the region.

Outside of Cisco, Rob serves as a board observer for Cohesity, an industry-leading enterprise storage company specializing in platforms for hyperconverged secondary storage solutions. Prior to Cisco, Rob was a technology investment banker at U.S. investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

Rob earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University.

Articles

December 16, 2019

2

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Exablaze

  02/03/2020 Update: We have completed the acquisition of Exablaze. Welcome to the team!   Network capacity and speed are today’s bread and butter for data intensive, highly transactional-based businesses requiring optimized bandwidth performance in industries and market segments like high…

June 6, 2019

7

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Sentryo

8/8/19 Update: Today we completed the acquisition of Sentryo. Welcome to Cisco! The Internet of Things (IoT) holds tremendous potential for companies to increase their productivity, gain access to deep intelligence and create new revenue opportunities. At the same time many organizations struggle wi…

March 26, 2019

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EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Turns Up the Innovation Dial with Decibel

Today, I am excited to announce that Cisco is launching a new, independent venture capital firm, Decibel, focused exclusively on early stage investing in the Enterprise. This is the first truly independent effort ever formed by a major technology company. Decibel is designed to bring together the be…

January 30, 2019

3

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Singularity Networks

2/11/19 Update: Today we completed the acquisition of Singularity Networks. Welcome to Cisco! I am pleased to announce Cisco’s intent to acquire Singularity Networks, a privately-held network infrastructure analytics company. Singularity Networks captures, enriches, and analyzes network data to help…

December 18, 2018

EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Helps Drive Industry’s Transition to Next Generation, High Speed Networks with Intent to Acquire Luxtera

Feb 6, 2019 Update: We have completed the acquisition of Luxtera. Welcome to Cisco! Internet traffic has grown dramatically over the past two decades and is only going to accelerate. More traffic will be created in 2022 than in the 32 years since the internet started, according to Cisco’s recent VNI…

November 21, 2018

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EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Ensoft

Update 1/11/19: Pleased to share that we have completed the acquisition of Ensoft.  Welcome to Cisco! I’m pleased to announce Cisco’s intent to acquire Ensoft Ltd. to further our commitment to simplify service provider networks through automation and programmability. Ensoft, a privately-held company…

August 2, 2018

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EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Driving Cisco’s Innovation Engine with Intent to Acquire Duo Security

Acquisitions have long played a key role in Cisco’s build, buy, partner, invest and co-develop innovation strategy. They help position us to enter new growth markets and extend our leadership in priority areas such as security. That’s why I am excited about our intent to acquire Duo Security, the le…

June 19, 2018

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EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire July Systems

Today we are announcing our intent to acquire July Systems, a privately-held company headquartered in Burlingame, California with offices in Bangalore, India. We are excited to welcome July Systems and its cloud-based mobile experience and location services platform to Cisco as we continue to bolste…

January 24, 2018

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EXECUTIVE PLATFORM

Cisco Announces Intent to Acquire Skyport Systems

2/8/18 Update: Pleased to announce that we have completed the acquisition of Skyport Systems. Welcome to Cisco! I’m excited to share that today Cisco announced its intent to acquire Skyport Systems, Inc., a privately-held company providing cloud-managed, hyper-converged systems that run and protect…