Cisco Systems - Tech Innovator of the Year

Company: Cisco Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA
Company Description: Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide technology leader that has been making the Internet work since its formation in 1984. Cisco has always prided itself on anticipating and leading technology market disruptions, including today's digital revolution that affects business and society everywhere. With over 70K+ employees Cisco is using technology to power an inclusive future for all.
Nomination Category: Management Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Tech Innovator of the Year - Software

Nomination Title: Carlos Pignataro Cisco CTO, CX

Carlos Pignataro, Chief Technology Officer, Customer Experience (CTO CX) at Cisco, is leading extraordinary achievements and breakthroughs in the information and computer networking business of significant market impact and global scale, as well as bettering society and the world. These include systems and services that influence and drive the functional evolution of the Internet in areas such as 5G, Automation, Multicloud, the Internet of Things, Cybersecurity, and others.

He has had a notable career of over 20+ years increasingly growing impact on technology advancements and business impact.

Carlos has been a Cisco Distinguished Engineer for over a decade, Adjunct Faculty at NC State University for almost a decade, and a Chief Technology Officer for the $4B Services Global Service Provider (SP) business, and then for the $13B Customer Experience (CX) business. Notably, he has earned numerous awards across the industry including IEEE Communications Society Industrial Innovation Award, was inducted Fellow at the National Academy of Inventors, and most recently recognized in HITEC 100 2021 as “one of the most influential Hispanic leaders in the technology industry”.
http://carlos.pignataro.net/about/IEEE-Communications-Society-Industrial-Innovation-Award.pdf
https://academyofinventors.org/fellows/
https://hitecglobal.org/page/HITEC-100-2021

His industry contributions follow a four-step approach:

-Deepening technology advances and breakthrough-inventions, evidenced by Carlos being inventor in 180+ issued US patents, and many more pending. Carlos is the 4th top inventor at Cisco out of 70,000+ employees.
-Driving a whole industry through interoperability of architectures via standardization efforts and creating ecosystems, evidenced by his authorship of 55+ Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Internet RFCs (top editor/author at Cisco, and 23rd in the industry, in the history of the Internet).
-Leading company level automation & telemetry as a business, providing material outcomes, impact, and results. Carlos inventions have been commercialized as Cisco products, features, and service offers.
-Steering the CX CTO team comprised of Distinguished Engineers and industry experts, sharing, educating, and growing professionals, in his role of adjunct faculty at NCSU, and through employee resource organizations for minorities. Carlos is the Cisco executive sponsor for the Research Triangle Park (RTP) site for Innovation, Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), Conexión (LatinX), and Early in Career Network (ECN) employee resource groups. A key part of his strategy is to “elevate others as opposed to flying alone.” He invests a significant amount of time mentoring, sponsoring, and in building programs to scale the leveling of the playing field.

At Cisco, Carlos focuses on award-winning technological innovation and company-wide business realization in Telemetry and several technology areas that directly contributed to the evolution of the modern Internet. At the same time, he serves as a leader and contributor to the IETF, a Standard Defining Organization (SDO) that plays a critical role in standardizing the technologies for vendor interoperability. In the industry, Carlos coalesces experts to drive standards and nurtures others' career development through his involvement in technical and services community such as the IETF and the International Society of Service Information Professionals (ISSP).

In addition to his technical and business accomplishments, Carlos is very passionate about volunteering and using his tech background to give back to our global community.

Carlos has led advances and breakthroughs on a global scale bettering society and the world. This includes being the Chief Architect for Cisco’s efforts in techno-conservation protecting endangered species, specifically rhinos in Africa. The techno-conservation solution included AI/ML for which Carlos was part of the team that won the prestigious Cisco Data Science Awards for Benefitting Humanity, and several industry awards.

Carlos is an innovative leader, exceptional role model and deserving candidate for CTO and IT Executive of the Year.

-HITEC 100 Award Winner, 2020 “Most influential Hispanic Leaders in the technology industry”
-National Academy of Inventors Fellow, 2019
-Cisco Data Science Awards – Benefitting Humanity, 2019
-IEEE Communication Society Industrial Innovation Award, 2019