Padmasree Warrior

As CTO, Padmasree Warrior helps define Cisco’s technological strategy and helps drive innovation across the company, working closely with the senior executive team and board of directors. As an evangelist for what’s possible, she pushes the organization to stretch beyond its current capabilities – not just in technology, but also in its strategic partnerships and new business models.

Warrior joined Cisco in 2007. Prior to that, she was the CTO at Motorola, where she led a team of 26,000 engineers and directed Motorola Labs.

In addition to her work at Cisco, Warrior serves on a broad range of government and industry advisory boards, as well as those of charitable and community organizations. Recently, Fast Company Magazine selected her among the “100 Most Creative People in Business” and she was one of six women nationwide selected to receive the "Women Elevating Science and Technology" award from Working Woman magazine. In 2007, she was inducted into the Women in Information Technology International Hall of Fame.

Warrior’s energetic, approachable and pragmatic leadership style integrates ideas from diverse sources, which include engineers, sociologists, technologists, marketers, policy experts and others. Throughout her career, she has earned a reputation for establishing processes that tap a rich diversity of technical, business and entrepreneurial IQ to nurture disruptive and breakthrough innovations, speed development time to market, and improve the way people work, live, play and learn.

Warrior holds a M.S. degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University and a B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India. In 2007 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Engineering from New York's Polytechnic University.