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Samira Panah Bakhtiar

Director, Cisco's Media Operation

Global Service Provider Organization

Samira Panah Bakhtiar is attuned to the powerful relationship that can be forged between digital media and technology. As managing Director for the Media Operation at Cisco Systems, Samira leads a team of highly passionate engineers and sales team members who evangelize this every day. Over the course of the last decade, her work at Cisco has led to strategic alignment and business transformation, with some of the world’s largest media conglomerates—focusing on introducing innovation and enhancing operational efficiency in the areas of production, contribution, post production, and primary & secondary distribution.

Samira’s humanitarian work focuses on the abolishment of human trafficking and she has worked as an advocate with the Half the Sky Movement, the New Somaly Fund, and Global Poverty Project, and currently sits on the Board of Directors for Together1Heart. Her philanthropic work has always been a strong personal driver, and as a result, Samira launched Bridge2Act in 2015, a venture which is focused on transforming the giving landscape through the use of technology.

Samira graduated Summa Cum Laude in Finance from the University of Arizona with her B.S., and Magna Cum Laude with her MBA from Fordham University. In her spare time Samira loves traveling, practicing Muay Thai Kick Boxing, Hot Yoga, and hitting up the culinary scene with her husband, Koorosh, in Manhattan.

Articles

April 13, 2018

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NAB 2018: here’s what you saw with the Cisco team

Sleep deprived?  If you are one of 200 or so people on my flight back to NYC from Vegas, you sure as heck are!  With another successful NAB in the books, vendors and customers alike make the great trek home, a little worse for the wear.  A week of non-stop meetings, events, solution showcasing, non-…

December 5, 2017

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Cheers to Cisco’s CableFax Over Achievers Under 30

Our Heartfelt Congratulations to Maureen Dolan and Andrew Solarz: CableFAX Overachievers Under 30 It is with great delight that I have occasion to recognize two stars in the Cisco family,  Maureen Dolan and Andrew Solarz, who made the CableFAX Overachievers Under 30 class of 2017!  Both represent th…

September 22, 2017

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Women in Technology: Knowing Yourself & Owning Your Authenticity

You heard in my last blog post that, I was named the 2017 Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) Woman to Watch for their newly established Technology category.  A truly incredible honor that I share with so many people who have helped shape me as both a professional woman in tech, but also as a d…

August 28, 2017

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Cisco & Women: Transforming the Entertainment Industry One Award at a Time!

A few weeks ago, I was named the 2017 Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT) Woman to Watch for their newly established Technology category.  Talk about honored—I am going to be sharing the stage with some seriously badass movers and shakers: Sara Barnett, BBC America’s President and GM; D’Arcy Ru…

April 6, 2017

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Cisco: Serious About Media. Seriously Crushing IT.

A little about me: I’m a Scorpio, a New Yorker, and am opening a new plant-based Mexican restaurant in China Town with my husband this month.  Oh, and in August I will have celebrated my 11th anniversary with Cisco. In the past decade, I have had the privilege of working with some of the most incred…

December 22, 2016

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A (Media) Year in Review

Incredible to see what a year can do— especially, when you’re sitting at the unique-cross section of tech and media!  I can’t help but feel nostalgic—it’s that time of year of course—when we look back at what we’ve accomplished and how far we have come.  The holidays fuel that type of retrospection,…