Jono Luk has become the latest high-profile departure from Cisco Webex.
The now-former VP of Product Management at Cisco Webex has seemingly left on his own terms to become the Chief Product Officer at SumerSports.
In doing so, Luk aims to achieve a better work-life balance.
“I decided to shift gears and leave Cisco to find a different balance in my life,” posted Luk on LinkedIn.
“Without getting into the details, my husband and I are looking forward to growing our family, so I need to find a role that gives me the ability to have the impact I want in a space that I love, in the way that I need.”
His leave follows last week’s departure of Javed Khan and the recent exit of Lorissa Horton, who Luk will report to as she’s now the SumerSports CEO.
Until June, Horton held Webex’s SVP/GM & Chief Product Officer role. Meanwhile, Khan had worked closely with her in the SVP/GM role.
In Khan’s goodbye message, he praised everyone at Webex for their hard work and commitment to delivering “the best products in the market”.
I felt now was a good time to hand over the reins of leadership and follow my passion for leveraging technology to create experiences that transform industries.
Yet, while these execs leave of their own accord, it’s unlikely that these departures have little to do with the current Cisco restructure.
The Cisco Layoffs & Collaborations Squeeze
Last Wednesday, Cisco announced a restructuring plan that will reduce its global workforce by seven percent. That equates to 5,500+ job losses.
The move marks Cisco’s second round of layoffs in 2024, adding to the departure of approximately 4,000 employees in February.
According to Richard Scott Herren, EVP & CFO of Cisco, the drivers between both rounds of layoffs remain the same.
“It’s not about cost saving… but it’s much more about finding efficiencies across the company so that we can pivot more resources, much like we did last year, into the fastest growth areas within the company,” he said.
So, [we are] pivoting more into AI, pivoting more into cloud, and pivoting more into cybersecurity.
In line with that pivot into cybersecurity, Cisco will combine Webex with its networking and security businesses in one unit.
According to Herren, this will allow Cisco to talk more about the need to integrate its collaboration, networking, and security products.
“If you look at what our biggest competitive differentiation is in the marketplace, it’s really when we do deep cross-integration across a portfolio, and we’re delivering on a platform strategy,” he noted.
Jeetu Patel will step into an expanded role as Chief Product Officer to lead this new business unit, having formerly served as EVP & GM, Security & Collaboration Business Units.
There, he will likely put additional focus on marketing Cisco’s security business, which is enjoying healthy growth, and make a concerted effort to pull collaborations and networking into any deals.
If this is indeed the case, Cisco’s efforts to lead marketing efforts with Webex and networking may fall to the wayside, and the layoffs could impact related jobs. Indeed, it may have already sparked some of the high-profile departures.
Nevertheless, this switch in Cisco’s strategy is understandable. After all, there’s little room for significant short-term growth in the crowded collaboration and networking markets.
Consider how Webex’s year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth was flat last quarter. Until then, it had only experienced modest growth throughout 2024, following four quarters of revenue deceleration.
Compare that with security, where Cisco is up 81 percent – thanks largely to its Splunk acquisition – and the opportunity to focus resources and build that narrative of a unified collaborations, networking, and security suite is clear.
That said, Webex still has a future in its own right – particularly in remits like the contact center, where Cisco has a large legacy base to enable organic longer-term growth.
However, expect it to take more of a back seat in the short term as Cisco pivots to ignite growth after enduring a 10 percent drop in total revenues last quarter.
