The Next Era of Marketers are Cisco Interns

The start of a new fiscal year at Cisco is always a mixed bag of emotions for me. After reflecting on the challenges and solutions our team achieved, I have a renewed sense of purpose and meaning. But I also always have a bit of sadness, because I know it’s time to say farewell to an incredibly bright group of college students who joined us over the summer as interns. 

The internship program at Cisco has been recognized as world-class. We recruit truly the best of the best across the globe. And each year, I’m impressed with the work our interns drove, giving us a fresh perspective and oftentimes a renewed vision of how to solve some critical issues. This is the first year ever that our interns have supported us in a completely virtual setting – adding some complexity to their ability to get proximate to the teams they supported and to collaborate on projects with each other across time zones. 

Earlier this week, Jim Walsh gave our Growth Marketing interns the opportunity to share their work with the whole organization in an intern readout, also hosted virtually for the first time ever. One word to describe the readout: WOW! I was incredibly impressed with the poise and polish these young adults carried themselves with and I learned so much from this session. They brought tangible, cost-effective and action-oriented solutions to some of our core business challenges. We were so impressed with the Partner Activation team that we invited them to a follow up deep dive with our entire org!   

As the summer interns wrap up their time with us, I had the opportunity Wednesday to talk to our interns in a more intimate environment as part of Cisco’s Leaders as Teachers program. It’s important for our interns to have access to our leaders, understand our individual career paths (which aren’t always linear or predictable!) and have a safe forum to ask questions and get answers to help them as they enter the workforce. It’s also yet another opportunity for me to learn from them, and I truly value that. 

I model my leadership philosophy after the 6th U.S. President John Quincy Adams and try to embrace a “leader as a service” attitude. It’s my responsibility, and my passion to help others grow. A big part of my role, and one I love most about being a leader, is nurturing my team. It’s so important to help our talent find their strengths, understand what motivates them and help them create a vision for what their future career path might look like.  

With the stress we all faced over the past few months, I’m grateful for opportunities like today where I get to take some time to reflect on my journey and what I’ve learned along the way to inspire our next era of marketers. And watch out, these students are incredibly talented.  

To learn more about Cisco’s internship program, click here. #NationalInternDay