Cisco India has become the favourite poaching ground for multinationals which are in search of top-gun talent to run their India businesses. Over the last few years, more than half a dozen Cisco senior executives have left the company to be appointed India heads of multinational corporations such as Palo Alto Networks, Symantec, McAfee, Polycom, Red Hat and Prysm Inc, to name a few.
This week, Cisco lost yet another senior executive, who quit to take on a larger role at Symantec.
Gaurav Agarwal, Director – Operations & Sales, Public Sector at Cisco, exited the company after nearly three years and joined Symantec as Managing Director – India & SAARC on June 27.
In this role, Agarwal will be responsible for Symantec’s enterprise security business in India and SAARC, where he will lead business, including sales, business operations and business development. Cisco veteran of 13 years, Amit Malik, Director and Head of Services Sales – India & SAARC, has taken on the additional responsibility of Public Sector Sales at Cisco.
At Cisco, Agarwal led a team of sales/tech sales people to achieve objectives of a $130-million business with the government.
Key revenue driversThe government and telecom verticals are among the top drivers of revenue growth for Cisco as it looks to net revenue targets of $2 billion in FY 2018 and $5 billion in FY 2020 under the leadership of Dinesh Malkani, President, Cisco India and SAARC.On being contacted, Agarwal confirmed his appointment at Symantec.
Some of the other top performers who exited Cisco over the last few years are: Anil Bhasin, who was Senior V-P and Services Head – India & SAARC, took on the reins at Palo Alto Networks as Managing Director for India & SAARC; Minhaj Zia, Director – Collaboration for India & SAARC, joined Polycom as its Managing Director for India & SAARC; Sanjay Rohatgi, Managing Director – Service Provider for India & SAARC, joined Symantec as its President for India and after one year got elevated to a global Asia Pacific & Japan role.
Rajesh Rege, Director of Cisco India’s Data Centre & Cloud business, exited to join Red Hat as its Managing Director of India & SAARC; Jagdish Mahapatra, Senior V-P of ITS Sales at Cisco, quit to join McAfee as its Managing Director of India & SAARC and last year got elevated to a global Asia Pacific role; and Kumar GB, head of Services Sales - Asia Pacific & Japan at Cisco joined Prysm Inc as its Vice-President for Asia Pacific.