Cisco veteran Listwin departs to wireless IP firm

By Jim Duffy
Network World, 08/14/00

SAN JOSE - Cisco veteran Don Listwin, one time considered to be the heir apparent to John Chambers as Cisco's CEO, has left the company to head up a new firm formed from the $6.4 billion merger of Phone.com and Software.com.

Listwin will become president and CEO of the merged company, which has not been named yet. The firm will combine Phone.com's software for connecting wireless devices to the Internet with Software. com's e-mail and IP unified messaging software. Listwin had been on Software.com's board since 1997. Cisco has a minority stake in the company.

Listwin joined Cisco in 1990 as a marketing manager and rose to become the No. 2 executive at the company and one of only two Cisco executive vice presidents. He led Cisco's corporate marketing, service provider and consumer lines of business.

Those duties will now be assumed by Chambers, Senior Vice President Kevin Kennedy and Senior Vice President Charlie Giancarlo, respectively.

Listwin's decision to leave Cisco was made over a matter of days, Chambers told Wall Street analysts in a conference call last week.

"It's with mixed feelings I announce my departure from Cisco," Listwin said during the call. "This is a very difficult decision for me, but the opportunity to be CEO aligned with my longstanding career goals. Over the last five to six months, I've been wrestling with the decision to stay with Cisco or join one of our ecosystem partners. Going forward, my goal is to create an even stronger partnership between my new company and Cisco."

"Given the role Don has played at Cisco, it seems only appropriate to formally thank him for his many contributions," Chambers said.

Listwin was considered by many to be the most likely successor to Chambers, but recently Listwin was downplaying that likelihood.

In May, Fortune magazine wrote that Listwin said he didn't want the Cisco CEO job and the high-profile statesmanship that comes with it. Also, Chambers indicated he will remain CEO for the next few years and Listwin didn't want to wait that long, according to reports.

An aggressive and self-confident executive who does not like his strategies or tactics questioned by analysts or the media, Listwin is credited with devising and executing some of the plans that helped Cisco grow from a $69 million company in 1990 to the $19 billion behemoth it is today. Among his feathers are Cisco's hugely successful shift to the service provider market, which doubled its bookings from fiscal 1999 to fiscal 2000; and the company's "ecosystem" strategy of establishing targeted partnerships to attack specific segments of the Internet and e-commerce opportunity.

But analysts say Listwin is not solely or directly responsible for some of the successful programs for which he's given credit. There have also been some bombs, such as the CiscoPro effort to push high volumes of Cisco product through retail and direct mail channels, and the troublesome integration that followed the $4 billion StrataCom acquisition in 1996.

"Don's been an active participant in who to buy and when, but Cisco's a big company and I don't think it runs on individuals anymore, except for Chambers," says Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects, a Washington, D.C., consultancy. "The rest of the individuals behind Chambers, no matter whether they think it or not, are all employees. Is Don Listwin's leaving going to have any effect on the company? The answer is no."

Cisco has continued its torrid pace despite the recent departures of high-level executives, such as Selby Wellman, site executive at Cisco's Research Triangle Park, N.C., operations, and Chief Technology Officer Judith Estrin.

Nonetheless, Listwin is a strong salesman and is customer-focused, Dzubeck says, two attributes that should be beneficial in his new role at the company formed from the Phone.com and Software.com merger.