Surya Panditi

Surya Panditi is senior vice president and general manager of the Core Technology Group (CTG) at Cisco which accounts for almost half of Cisco’s product revenues. As a Co-Leader of CTG, Panditi is responsible for the strategy, engineering, and marketing direction of Cisco’s comprehensive family of Service Provider networking platforms, including Core and Edge routingHe helps drive strategic architectural convergence and alignment of innovative technologies across market segments to leverage investments in hardware, ASICs and software to ensure Cisco’s market-leading products deliver on customer needs.

Prior to his current role, Surya briefly led Cisco Systems’ Service Provider Routing Technology Group. Prior to that assignment, he was VP and GM of the Access and Transport Technology Group, which included Cisco’s portfolio of Optical products, Cable Modem Termination Systems, Quadrature Amplitude Modulation and Access Transmission business units. Surya’s responsibilities included P&L, overall strategy, product development/positioning and introducing leading-edge technologies and competitive products.

Joining Cisco in August 2005, and with more than 25 years of senior leadership experience with several public and privately-held data and telecommunications equipment provider companies, Surya brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Cisco.

Before joining Cisco, Surya served as president and CEO of Polaris Networks, a provider of optical transport switches. He also held the CEO position for Convergent Networks Inc., a provider of broadband voice infrastructure products for cable and telecom service providers. Surya also served as chairman, president and CEO of Avici Systems Inc. where he successfully managed the company’s growth and transition from a private to a public company.

Previously, Surya was vice president and general manager of the local area network infrastructure business unit at USRobotics. Earlier in his career he worked for Intel Corporation, Ungermann-Bass and Telco Systems.

Surya has served on the boards of enKoo, a developer of remote access products, now a part of SonicWALL; Internet Photonics, a company acquired by Ciena Corporation in 2004; and Avici Systems.

Surya earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.