Meet Cisco's New CFO
Frank Calderoni, who officially becomes CFO this week, talks about his new role and his confidence in the company
February 12, 2008
Last August, John Chambers announced that Frank Calderoni would assume the CFO position upon Dennis Powell's planned retirement. On February 15, Calderoni will officially become Cisco's CFO.
During his past four years at Cisco, Calderoni has served as SVP of Customer Solutions Finance and, before that, vice president of Worldwide Sales Finance. Recently he took a few minutes to speak with News@Cisco about his new role, share his confidence in the company, and offer a glimpse into his personal interests.
Can you give us a basic overview of your responsibilities as chief financial officer?
Frank Calderoni: I'm excited to be taking on the role of CFO. Building on the success of Dennis Powell and Larry Carter, our former CFOs, I believe my experience will continue to drive the evolution of Finance as a strategic business partner at Cisco.
In addition to the traditional Finance responsibilities of budgeting, compliance, and decision support as a part of Corporate Finance, our General Corporate Controller organization, Business Finance Operations, Customer Solutions Finance and Finance Operations functions, my job also provides oversight for a broad range of Treasury responsibilities. These include Tax, Enterprise Risk Management and Workplace Resources as well as our growing Cisco Capital organization.
You've played a key role in the evolution of Finance over the past four years. What are you most proud of?
Frank Calderoni: As SVP of our Customer Solutions Finance organization, I was able to drive profitable growth, disciplined decision making, and transparency in our reporting.
I'm very proud of my team's partnership with the Sales and Service organizations to create combined product and service offerings that are designed to increase top-line revenue, maintain bottom-line profitability while establishing a stronger, ongoing relationship with our partners and customers to achieve their business goals.
I'm also proud of the work of the Emerging Market Council, in which I played a key role. This council identified the opportunity for Cisco to invest in the innovation economy in Emerging Markets. The Council continues to meet regularly to determine ongoing strategy and ensure faster and better decisions designed to shape demand and accelerate growth for years to come. In addition to the Emerging Markets Council, I've participated in the Service Provider Council, which continues to drive the strategy for our very successful SP business globally.
Is Cisco's financial model robust enough to weather market turbulence?
Frank Calderoni: I have the utmost confidence in Cisco's financial model. Our vision of the industry, differentiated strategy, and ability to execute are working well. For those areas that we can control, we should be very optimistic of our ability to achieve our target business results—both in the short and long term.
In Q2 FY'08, we generated $2.4 billion in cash from operations, our 12th consecutive quarter of cash generation above $2 billion, which speaks to the continued quality of our financial model. We are better positioned than our competitors to leverage this financial strength to withstand and take advantage of market transitions to deliver the network as the platform for the next wave of productivity and collaboration.
What will be your areas of focus for the next 90 days?
Frank Calderoni: First and foremost, I will continue to be committed to maximizing shareholder value. My team and I will stay focused on ensuring profitable growth, disciplined decision making, leveraging our financial health and maintaining the level of integrity and transparency that Cisco is known for.
I will also be focused on maintaining a balanced portfolio of initiatives for Cisco. Finance plays a key role in partnering with the business to drive long-range and short-term profitable growth by ensuring Cisco's investment priorities are reviewed as a portfolio versus a series of unrelated activities. This will allow Cisco to tap into markets that represent $1 billion to $10 billion in opportunities over the next three to five years.
source: www.cisco.com
