Susan L. Bostrom
Executive Vice President
Cisco Systems
Sue Bostrom is executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Cisco Systems. With
over 11 years of experience at Cisco Systems in a variety of roles and more than 20 years
of strategic marketing experience, she is responsible for developing and communicating
Cisco’s vision and strategy through positioning, branding, advertising, and product
marketing. Her organization consists of innovative marketing professionals who are
responsible for acting as a stimulus for Cisco’s growth strategy and cultivating new
opportunities in both new and existing market segments. She also has responsibility for
the Global Policy and Government Affairs organization, which develops and executes
upon Cisco’s public policy agenda. She also has leadership roles on Cisco’s Consumer
and Small Business Councils, developing and managing Cisco’s business strategies for
these two major customer segments.
Prior to her role as chief marketing officer, she had responsibility for the Internet Business
Solutions Group (IBSG), an organization she built to bring vertical expertise and Internet
business best practices to Global Fortune 500 companies, governors, and heads of state.
Ms. Bostrom joined Cisco in 1997 as vice president of applications and services marketing
and was appointed to vice president of IBSG in 1998. She was promoted to senior vice
president in February 2000, chief marketing officer in January 2006, and executive
vice president in August 2007.
In addition to her primary responsibilities, Ms. Bostrom served as the executive sponsor of
the Women’s Initiative at Cisco from 2001 through 2004. She firmly believes that diversity in
the workforce brings diversity of thought, which increases a business’s competitive advantage.
Previously, she served as senior vice president of global marketing and strategic planning
at FTP Software. Prior to joining FTP, Ms. Bostrom worked in strategic marketing at
National Semiconductor. She served for seven years at McKinsey & Company as a leader
in the electronics practice.
She serves on the board of directors for Varian Medical Systems and Stanford Hospital
and Clinics. She is a founding member of the Georgetown Technology Alliance and serves
on the advisory board of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Ms. Bostrom holds an MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and
a BS degree in marketing from the University of Illinois, where she graduated in the top
one percent of her class.