Jayshree Ullal: Ever the entrepreneur

Holding five vice president titles in 12 years at Cisco, Jayshree Ullal is no stranger to change; she thrives on making switches.

//VitalStats     Position: Senior vice president of data center, switching and security. Age:44 Years at company: 12   Years in Industry: 25 Major career accomplishment: Taking over Cisco's combined data center, switching and security product lines, which account for almost half of the company's revenue.     ILLUSTRATOR: ANTONY HARE

Born in London and raised in India, Ullal had a change in scenery, for example, when she came to the United States to study engineering. She earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from San Francisco State University and a master's degree in engineering from Santa Clara University. She then worked as a chip designer in the semiconductor industry for 11 years. Next a switch in jobs and roles led her to the top marketing position at Fast Ethernet start-up Crescendo Communications, which Cisco bought in 1993 as the foundation on which it built its now-dominant Ethernet switch business.

In her decade as a Cisco executive, Ullal has led the vendor's entry into optical, storage and security - all considered among Cisco's seven Advanced Technologies, or $1 billion revenue opportunities. In her current role as senior vice president of data center, switching and security, Ullal heads a combined business unit whose products represent on average almost half of Cisco's quarterly revenue.

Ullal's many job swaps at Cisco involved overseeing and assimilating dozens of acquisitions. A skill that has served her well, Ullal says, is the ability to relate to executives and engineering talent that comes with these buyouts.

"I have great empathy with the companies we acquire, because I know how difficult the transition can be," she says. "These are people on a mission and proud of their company, teams and products. I always tell people,'Don't give up. Hang in there; the first year is toughest. I myself shed many tears in that first year.'"

The key is keeping top talent from acquired companies focused on the technology goals from before the buyout. In other words, get them to think as a business unit of Cisco, but to handle tasks and problems with a start-up approach, she says, adding that she still tries to operate with a free-flowing start-up mentality.

"I'm not the world's greatest follower of processes and procedures," she says. "I love technology and I love to learn. I'm amazed at how little I know, and how much more there is to know. . . . I think of myself as having more entrepreneurial traits" than the habits of a typical corporate executive.

Although she holds two engineering degrees, Ullal never saw herself as the prototypical product designer. As an engineer, first designing chips and later switch architectures, Ullal describes herself as "good, but not great." But a friendly disposition helped her communicate with customers.

"If one of my chips had a problem, I would have to talk with the customers to fix it," she says."It was hugely fulfilling and satisfying. So in that sense, I probably was not the stereotypical engineer."