Does Cisco discriminate against CCIEs by not promoting them to management?

Or are the CCIEs themselves practicing their own form of discrimination against Cisco by not accepting promotions to management?

Last month, the worldwide CCIE count passed the historic milestone of 20,000.

Putting that into further perspective, based on Cisco's most recent employee head count of 66,558, and my personal opinion that all CCIEs indirectly work for Cisco, CCIEs indirectly account for 30% of Cisco's entire worldwide workforce.

Nevertheless, only 2 CCIEs appear among the 59 executives listed as members of Cisco's upper management ranks (making CCIE representation only 3% of Cisco's upper management). Those 2 CCIEs are Gregory Akers - Senior Vice President of Cisco Research and Advanced Development and Manny Rivelo - Senior Vice President of Cisco's Development Organization Operations. Amazingly in my opinion, not even Joe Pinto - Senior Vice President for Cisco Technical Services is a CCIE, nor even Cisco certified (CCNA, etc. at least according to Pinto's Cisco biography).

Which in my mind leads to the following question:

Does Cisco discriminate against CCIEs by not promoting them to management?

More than a year ago, Cisco announced achieving the milestone of 1 million Cisco certified individuals worldwide. Yet, on the personal biographies of Cisco's upper management, no Cisco certifications are mentioned as having been earned (except of course for our 2 CCIEs, Akers and Rivelo).

Is it possible that Cisco management doesn't respect its own certifications? Because in my opinion if they did, all Cisco management would be required to have at least one, two or possibly even three Cisco certifications. Perhaps many members of Cisco's senior management don't truly have a basic understanding of networking? And is it a dangerous disconnect if Cisco's senior management team doesn't know their own core applications or products at the same level that Cisco customers do?

Offering a contrary viewpoint to mine, Dual CCIE #18532 Routing and Switching/Security - George Morton, believes the opposite of my assertion - that Cisco doesn't promote CCIEs to management.

According to George and his experiences in the field:

"It's the CCIEs themselves who are not accepting promotion offers to join Cisco management."

I'm certainly not about to question George and his field experience.

So I'd love to hear from more CCIEs (as well as other Cisco certified individuals) in the field, on what they've personally experienced.

Note: Cisco did not respond to a request for comment.

View more CCIE Water Cooler Gossip.

What's your take, is this a unique conundrum specific to Cisco or am I just totally whacked?

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• Careers
• Cisco
• Data Center
• LANs / WANs
• Security
• VoIP / Convergence
• Wireless / Mobile
• 1 million Cisco certified individuals worldwide
• CCIEs indirectly account for 30% of Cisco's entire worldwide workforce
• Cisco doesn't promote CCIEs to management
• Dual CCIE #18532 Routing and Switching/Security - George Morton
• Gregory Akers - Senior Vice President of Cisco Research and Advanced Development
• I'd love to hear from more CCIEs (as well as other Cisco certified individuals) in the field
• Is it a dangerous disconnect if Cisco's senior management team doesn't know their own core applications or products at the same level that Cisco customers do?
• Is it possible that Cisco management doesn't respect its own certifications?
• Is this a unique conundrum specific to Cisco or am I just totally whacked?
• Joe Pinto - Senior Vice President for Cisco Technical Services is a CCIE
• Manny Rivelo - Senior Vice President of Cisco's Development Organization Operations
• Perhaps many members of Cisco's senior management don't truly have a basic understanding of networking?
• Personal biographies of Cisco's upper management