More of Cisco's top security talent leave to join startups

"Russell's achievements during his tenure are lengthy and notable. He was the driving force in the creation of what is now ISE, with over $100M in revenue generated and 8000 customers deployed within 3 years of creation."

New York City:   Sat, 1/17/15 - 11:59pm    View comments
 

Update 1/20/2015 - 4:44pm

Cisco cloud security guru Raja Patel joining Intel Security

as well as

Earlier this week, 17-year Cisco security product guru, Russell Rice, bolted to join a startup.

At least according to this week's internal Cisco communication:
 

"Russell Rice has decided to leave Cisco after 17 years to join an early stage startup. Russell has been a key leader inside the Security organization and spent over a decade in multiple leadership roles leading our NAC business and building cross-architecture solutions to truly differentiate Cisco in the market place.

"Russell has been with Cisco Security almost since its inception, he remembers when NAC didn't exist and the PIX firewall team was four engineers strong.

"Russell's achievements during his tenure are lengthy and notable. He was the driving force in the creation of what is now ISE, with over $100M in revenue generated and 8000 customers deployed within 3 years of creation. He was key in establishing NAC as a market segment and lead product management to keep Cisco as a leader in the segment over the years. A key contributor to the 'SAFE' blueprint, setting in motion an architectural approach to Security. The list goes on and on. We are going to miss Russell, we wish him well in his new endeavors."

Here's the Cisco biography on Rice and interestingly, it was only 5-months ago that Rice appeared to have been promoted by Cisco in this internal memo.

But there'e more than 1 Russell bolting, Paul Russell, a 15-year Cisco veteran and Harvard University Masters in Information Techology graduate, is bolting from his job as the Cisco Security Business Group's Senior Manager of Product Management.

How so?

Well, this was also found this week in an internal Cisco communication:

"After 15 years at Cisco, Paul Russell has decided to take on a new opportunity outside Cisco.

"Over his tenure, Paul has been a constant source of ideas and energy across the Contact Center, Collaboration, Networking and Security teams. In SBG, Paul was a key contributor to the successful release of ISE 1.3 where he left his mark with the teams responsible for the massive improvements in Guest and BYOD user experience and enhanced licensing mechanics. We wish Paul the best in his new endeavor."

View Paul Russell Twitter Tweets.
 

Related stories:

Cisco cloud security guru Raja Patel joining Intel Security

Turmoil hits the top leadership of Cisco Security

Internal memo reveals Cisco Identity Services Engine product management shake-up
 

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