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Stephen Speirs

SP Product Management

Cisco Customer Experience (CX)

Stephen Speirs is part of the Cisco Customer Experience Product Management team. This team is tasked with developing major new professional service offerings for Cisco. Stephen has worked on a range of technologies - 5G, NFV, Cloud, Data Center, SDN, DevOps and more. Working with customers and partners worldwide, Stephen has over 30 years industry experience in software development, IT, Data Centers and Service Provider Network Management.

Working with and building a 30 partner consortium, Stephen brought to life the 5G RuralFirst project - potentially the world's most ambitious rural 5G trial - winning part government funding to take 5G to Orkney and Somerset in the UK. Before joining Cisco Services in 2009, Stephen was senior manager, product management, in Cisco's Network Management Technology group, where he brought to market the multi-award winning Cisco MPLS Diagnostics Expert product. In Cisco Services, Stephen drove development of the Cloud Enablement Services - rated #1 by IDC in their 2013 client survey.

Stephen is based in Cisco's offices in Scotland, near Glasgow, and was "acquired into" Cisco in 2000 through the acquisition of Atlantech Technologies Ltd. Stephen has a BSc (1st Hons) in Applied Physics from the University of Strathclyde, an MSc in Digital Systems engineering from the University of Heriot Watt, and an MBA from the University of Strathclyde Graduate Business School.

Outside of work, family, cycling, running, and skiing keep him busy. Believing in "Giving Back" with work-related skills, Stephen also is a guest speaker on the Strathclyde University MBA program, a board member on Scotland Innovation Program (a Scottish Futures Trust/EE/academia collaboration to address internet access challenges across Scotland), and a student project mentor with Dundee University's Product Management BSc/MSc

Articles

July 15, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 10: Process and Governance – Part (b)

Operational process and governance, as I discussed last month, is “Domain 10” in the Cisco Domain Ten(SM) model for data center transformation.  It’s so important in my opinion, and so often disregarded or de-prioritised when planning and executing data center transformation, that…

June 26, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Professional Services for Cloud Ranked #1 in IDC Survey – Announced at CiscoLive!

Having been part of the team who developed the Cisco Cloud Enablement Services, our professional services to help customers enable and adopt cloud computing, I was absolutely delighted watching the CiscoLive! keynote yesterday to hear Padmasree Warrior announce the results of the March 2013 IDC mark…

June 25, 2013

DATA CENTER

Meet our Experts @ CiscoLive!

Some of our Cisco Services strategy and design consultants and leaders are at CiscoLive in Orlando this week.  If you are around, please take some time to learn from their hands on expertise.  They are the leading exponents in designing and deploying Cisco data center solutions.   If you’ve fo…

June 23, 2013

DATA CENTER

Leading the Network Evolution to SDN – Helping You with Your SDN Adoption Strategy

  If you are following the industry debates around Software Defined Networking (SDN), and are wondering “What really is SDN?”, “How the concepts of network virtualization and network programmability relate to SDN?” and perhaps more pertinently, “What can it do for my business” and “What network…

June 21, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 10: Process and Governance – Part (a)

So, with this blog, the end of my Cisco Domain Ten(SM) journey approaches.  Starting back in December, I’ve now covered each of the ten domains in our Cisco Services’ framework for data center transformation. A few weeks back, I discussed some of the challenges you may face in Domain 9: Security and…

Take 3: Ride Across Britain (again) to Raise Funds for Paralympic Athletes

  It’s 5:30am on Monday morning (10th June 2013 to be precise). ” Wake up it’s a beautiful morning” by the Boo Radleys  is blasting out of the speakers at the camp site.   “I shouldn’t be up at this time” is one of the lines of this songs which rings so…

June 7, 2013

DATA CENTER

Services – the Missing “S” in the SDN Debate

While I’ve been writing about Cisco Domain TenSM, I’ve been watching the SDN debate evolve in our industry, and I have to say, I’ve had my concerns.  Don’t get me wrong – I personally see SDN as an important and very much required evolution (and note: ‘evolution’ – not ‘revolution’) of the networkin…

May 27, 2013

DATA CENTER

Desktop Virtualization Automation – Upcoming Webinar on Wednesday May 29th

Last week I blogged on Desktop Virtualization Automation – and how we in Cisco Services can help you develop custom automation software solutions for rapid provisioning of virtual desktops. If you are involved in desktop virtualization, or interested in automation and orchesration, you may wan…

May 23, 2013

DATA CENTER

Cisco Domain Ten: Domain 9: Security and Compliance

Security and Compliance is the next domain in our Cisco Domain TenSM model that I will cover, following on from my previous post on Applications.  And following on from my previous posts around Cisco Domain Ten, I’ll give you a brief overview of the questions that come up when we discuss data…