Michael Beesley, CTO SP Networking, Cisco

Michael is Vice President and CTO of the Cisco Networking Group leading technical direction, architectural transition, solution architecture and roadmap planning for Cisco’s SP networking portfolio. He drives Cisco’s leadership position in core, edge, aggregation and access routing, mobility, cable, optics and optical networking and automation software solutions in collaboration with partners, customers, internal cross-functional leaders and the industry in reinventing the mass-scale networks of the future.

Prior to rejoining Cisco in February 2018, Michael was co-founder and CTO of Skyport Systems, developing cloud managed, on premise, virtualized compute platforms with security, ease of use, and always-on analytics built in. Before Skyport, Michael served as engineering CTO at Juniper Networks, leading new architectures, embedded software evolution and silicon roadmap development across the router, switch and Wi-Fi portfolios.

Michael has held many senior technical leadership roles at both Cisco and Juniper and was a key contributor to many successful product lines and technology including C7200, C12000, M40, T640, JUNOS, ASR1K and IOS-XE. Michael holds CS and Math degrees from Trinity College, Dublin, is a named inventor on many networking related patents, is a frequent speaker at industry events, and often shares his thoughts through Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs.