Mark Patterson — Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales Strategy and Operations at Cisco

Mr. Mark Patterson serves as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales Strategy and Operations at Cisco Systems, Inc. Mr. Patterson is responsible for driving and accelerating sales strategy to execution. His focus includes setting the strategic direction for digital selling, driving the implementation for go-to-market initiatives, developing the long-range strategic business plan, and leading sales operations, inclusive of sales/partner training, sales compensation, managing Cisco's customer experience centers around the globe, and producing sales recognition events. Prior to his current role, he has played a major role in developing Cisco's sale strategy and driving execution and results. He has led initiatives that build and manage significant business foundations. He was instrumental in developing a new global service provider segment representing approximately 25 percent of Cisco's business; establishing new global commercial, global security sales, and Greater China as a standalone region; and the integration of product and services sales. Additionally, he led the original formation of the Americas region, bringing together 6 theaters, 35 countries, 2 go-to-market models, and 2 market segments, while building and implementing a plan to increase productivity by 17 percent. Since joining Cisco in 2000, he has held a number of functional leadership roles across the company, ranging from finance, sales strategy, planning, and operations, working with each of Cisco's primary customer segments spanning enterprise, commercial, public sector, and service provider. Prior to joining Cisco, he led finance and overall business operations for IPMobile. In his career, he focused on serving high-technology and telecommunications clients as manager at a large-scale public accounting firm. He holds a bachelor's of business administration degree in accounting from Baylor University in Texas.