Team,

With the increasing number of security data breaches around the world, security has grown to be a number one concern among our customers and a top investment priority for Cisco. Additionally, with the news over the past year about the increasing number of cyber attacks, our customers have higher expectations about trust and are asking tougher questions for product development, services delivery and corporate responsibility.

To align and elevate our efforts across the Company and underscore the pivotal role security and trust plays in customers' decisions, we are creating the new Security & Trust Organization. SVP, John Stewart will serve as Cisco's Chief Security and Trust Officer and will lead the organization's expanded mission, reporting to Gary as President and Chief Operating Officer. Those employees reporting into John's group will move to the new organization.

Establishing the Security & Trust Organization comes at a critical time for our customers and for Cisco. The team will be responsible for ensuring our new business areas, such as Cloud and Intercloud, have the appropriate security controls that our customers and governments are requiring. Customers already rely on us to provide strong security for their business infrastructures and this will be increasingly important as we provide products and services from, and for, the Cloud. The organization will have corporate-level responsibility to ensure cross-functional alignment around customer protection, capabilities and compliance. In addition, the team will continue to drive key initiatives focused on corporate information, government and product security.

The Security & Trust Organization will continue its tight alignment with the Security Business Group led by Chris, in driving security as a horizontal, the Cisco-on-Cisco partnership and delivery, innovation on threat intelligence infrastructure and use cases and external thought leadership. This team has, and will, continue to play a critical role in Cisco's ability to be a market leader in security.

Please join us in congratulating John and his entire organization on their accomplishments and expanded charter.

Gary Moore and Chris Young