Carl Solder (Cisco).
Cisco has appointed Carl Solder as its new A/NZ chief technology officer (CTO).
Solder will be responsible for elevating Cisco’s technology strategy and highlighting the latest company innovations, with a strong customer focus to understand the needs and application of technology.
Solder has spent more than 26 years with the networking giant and returns to Australia after 14 years in Silicon Valley. He will be based in Perth and has held a variety of leadership roles throughout his time, including a team of technical evangelists as vice president - engineering within Cisco's enterprise networking business.
His Cisco career kicked off in 1996 as the second systems engineer to support customers in Western Australia.
“I’m keen to connect back with our Australian and New Zealand customer community who, at the executive briefing centres in San Jose, are often viewed as technology thought leaders when compared to customer peers across the world,” Solder said.
“The world is undergoing massive changes in the way it uses the network and associated technology and is integrated throughout business and in our lives. From the pandemic and shift to hybrid work, to increased cyber attacks, the adoption of the internet of things, automation, developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning – all these factors have resulted in an acceleration of Cisco’s innovation engine.
“We are at a time in which the opportunities for customers and partners are evolving faster and innovating more creatively. I am committed to helping our customers in Australia and New Zealand to continue leading the way.”
Solder steps into the role vacated by Kevin Bloch in July 2020, who left to set up his own consultancy aimed at assisting companies build and scale intellectual property and bagged a consulting gig with publicly listed FirstWave.
