How Did I Get Here?

John Chambers

Chairman and chief executive officer, Cisco Systems
  • Education
  • Charleston High School, Charleston, W.Va., class of 1967
  • West Virginia University, Morgantown, class of 1971
  • West Virginia University College of Law, class of 1974
  • Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Bloomington, class of 1975
  • Work Experience
  • 1976–82
    Sales representative; marketing manager, IBM
  • 1983–87
    Vice president for central region, U.S. operations, Wang Laboratories
  • 1987–90
    Senior vice president for U.S., Americas, and Asia-Pacific operations, Wang Laboratories
  • 1991–95
    Senior vice president for Worldwide Operations, Cisco Systems
  • 1995–2006
    President and CEO, Cisco Systems
  • 2006–Present
    CEO and chairman of the board, Cisco Systems
  • Life Lessons
  • “Don’t raise your voice. Expect your team to win but also to play fair.”
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  • “Always compete against market transitions.”
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  • “Whenever a person’s out of a job, help them be successful if you can.”
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  • In the 1950s
    “I was a good student, but not in English or foreign languages, in part because of dyslexia.”
  • With Peter Lynch, vice chairman of Fidelity (left), and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, 2001
  • Presenting to staff, 2014
  • “I sent out about 100 résumés, and no offers came in. It was very humbling. So I networked.”
  • “Cisco was a company nobody knew, with 400 people and $70 million in sales.”
  • “In July I become executive chairman. I’ll work half-time. Chuck [Robbins] is the CEO, and he’ll make the decisions. Usually when high-tech companies transition, the next leader struggles, so we knew we had to do it differently.”
  • Middle row, center, with managers at Wang, 1985
  • “My friend asked me to interview. I said, ‘Steve, I didn’t go to school for nine and a half years to do sales.’ I thought technology was a little geeky. He said, ‘I got two tickets to the basketball game.’”
  • “Wang made minicomputers. There were 12 geographies, and only two were making money. I knew how to fix that, and 11 out of 12 were profitable within a year.”
  • “When I became CEO, sales were $1.2 billion. Today sales are about $48 billion.”
  • At a leadership retreat in Alaska, 2009