Talking people, policy, purpose, and how Cisco empowers employees in the AI era, with Fran Katsoudas

Pardon me as I try to get through this simple but not simple question. Okay. All right. We're rolling. We're rolling. All right, here we go. I don't know what that was.

High five.

Yeah. Yeah. I should just do that for each— between each section. Yeah.

Here we go.

All right. We got this. Welcome to Cisco TechBeat, the podcast that explores the people and stories behind what inspires the newest innovation. I'm your host, AB, and I am so thrilled because in person here during Climate Week and Global Citizen 2025, I have our very own Chief People Policy and Purpose Officer, Fran Katsoudas. Fran, welcome to the show.

Thanks, AB. Happy to be here.

We finally made it happen. I'm so happy. So I wanna talk about your career right away because you've really hit a milestone, 29 years at Cisco, which is incredible. So I'm wondering if you could take us through that journey, like what was your first job, you know, and how has that shaped what you're doing now in your role as our Chief People Policy and Purpose Officer?

Can I tell you the funniest thing? When people say 29 years, like in a group, in the audience, I hear, oh! And I can't believe it's been 29 years. So when I started at Cisco, I started in the contact center. And it was really funny. I was in an interview. I didn't want to interview for a technology role because I didn't have that background. But the truth of the matter is I found myself in the wrong interview. Hmm. as I was talking, there was something inside me that said, you know what, maybe this is where you were meant to be.

Yeah.

And I committed to the recruiter that I would work hard, I would learn the technology, and she gave me a chance. And I think what that meant for me is that in our careers, we have to give people a chance. We have to recognize that with training and mentorship, people learn new things.

That's right.

And so that's where I started. And so it was really funny. I learned our technology. I was in the contact center for about a year. And I remember those days I was answering like 80 customer questions a day. And then a year later, I was managing the team.

Wow.

And then a year later, I helped to build more of a different model for how we supported our customers. And then I moved on to the next role and the next role. And so after 29 years, I've worked in most of the organizations within the company. Sure. And I have to tell you, I've learned something in every place. which has been just a big part of my journey.

Absolutely. I love that. I mean, and I hear that from a lot of leaders too who have made different journeys through Cisco, learn something, craft a role, create a space, or just find something that you don't necessarily want to do, move on. That's exactly right. But still building up your experience.

I think it's important to not look at those experiences where we do something that we don't want to do as failure. We look at those as, okay, great, that gives me more clarity around where I want to spend my time and what I'm really good at.

Love that. So you mentioned the contact center, the TAC center, which is a really great role. With your experience now knowing what AI does, how do you think that's going to affect that particular kind of role? What are your thoughts on that?

So I'm not surprised that AI has intersected the contact center so successfully. And I think this is really important for how we think about our work. So in a contact center, if you haven't worked in one, basically, all of the questions from customers are anticipated. And for us as agents, there's a lot of structure around our answers. Right. There's a lot of structure around, hey, when do you escalate? And all of that clarity means that it's easier for technology to be helpful. It's easier to have automation. And so what I think that means from a work perspective is that we have to think about all of those places where When there are clear patterns around how work occurs that we have the ability to automate. And so from a Cisco perspective, as you probably know, 1.5 million cases are managed today by AI.

Right.

And what that means is that from a human perspective, instead of doing first line like I did when I joined Cisco, we're now second line support, we're now third line support. Which from a career perspective is better. It's also harder. And so the training to manage those cases needs to be there. But I think it's a really beautiful example of how technology can really support and supplement and then how we move up the stack.

Absolutely. And I think that's the message across all of Cisco is this is for support. This is going to help you be the better you as a worker.

That's right.

I think a lot of people who are early in career, who are starting out, especially, you know, I have a son who just started college and Who knows what the landscape will be when he graduates. But how do you think this will affect early-in-career people who are, you know, entering the workforce?

In the long term, I think it will be only positive. And the reason that I say that is because what we see around the world is that the youth are using these AI tools quite naturally and frequently.

Right.

And I think that comfort with tooling will just be so natural as people step into roles. And on the flip side, I think we just have to recognize that companies right now are really assessing the work and they're assessing where AI can come in. And so I think what's being misrepresented is that this pause as companies are looking at their roles, I don't think is anything more than a pause versus a detrimental impact to new hires or, you know, people coming out of university, if you will. I think there's tremendous opportunities there and that we're just at a point where we're learning how to best deploy and the best roles to come into a company.

I love that. And it's really interesting to mention the pause because I think with any new technology, whichever field you're in, it would be irresponsible almost to just sort of employ that technology without really sussing it out, vetting it, making sure that it's going to do what you need it to do. Yeah,

it's so funny. I was in a meeting this week. And I think it was so interesting because what we said was that, on the one hand, the technology has always been the easier part Of transformation, right? Right. You bring on tech, you learn. It's the people element that's the hardest. And I think when we say that, what we're referring to is not just the skills changes, which I think are coming and I think will be really good for all of us. I think it's the mindset that we're going to have to be so agile.

Right.

And that what was successful for us as individuals or key capabilities Sure. And we have to lean into that positively as opposed to try to protect that which we're really good at. And that just as humans is really hard for us.

Yeah, it is. And I mean, it really is the people element. I mean, it's too bad we don't have a Chief People Policy and Purpose Officer. It would be— oh, and you know what?

We should really ask her about that.

I'm going to ask her about that when I see her. So as we were talking about this AI transition, of course Cisco is making that now. I've heard you mention a two-pronged approach. Could you elaborate on that a bit more and maybe just let us know what you're excited about?

It's actually quite simple. Okay. So go back a couple of years. If you recall, the conversations about AI, like they are today, were nonstop. But when Cisco put out our AI Readiness Index, what did we see? We saw the first year that only 14% of companies felt ready. The next year, the number didn't go up. No, it went down. It went down. I remember that. Which is crazy, right? I think part of that is because the motion had been top-down.

Okay.

What we need to ensure is that with the top-down, we also have a bottoms-up, because what that means is that people closest to the work are intersecting their day-to-day tasks with technology. Okay. And that's why for us at Cisco, leveraging our program teaming with AI was so important. It did 2 things. The first was, It signaled that we believe that AI is a team sport. The second thing that it did was it asked volunteers to come forward, to go through training. And I think that's a big part of any transformation is those kind of early adopters. But then they took their learnings back to their teams and they facilitated conversations around how could we do our work more effectively? How can these AI tools really change the value or impact of what we do?

Right.

And the funny thing is, I don't think we'll be successful with either of the motions without them working together. And so now that we've had this bottoms-up motion, what we have is a tremendous number of use cases, almost too many. Yeah. Right? So now you need a little bit of the top-down around, okay, where are we going to focus? What are the biggest priorities? How do we ensure that people understand their role and the expectations that we have of them as we move through? And so I think those are the 2 elements that are so critical.

Yeah, and I really love the fact that you're thinking about the bottoms-up approach too, because I feel like even at work, employees are starting to embrace this idea of, you know, getting more AI proficient and how is it gonna help me? And it seems to be a conversation that's happening more and more, which is great for us, so.

Absolutely. I think we have to recognize that a lot of times innovation comes from the edge. It comes from those people that are closest to the customers, closest to the work, who see the opportunities. And what we have to do as a company— and I think we're getting better at this, but I think we have to even do more— is we have to make it easier for a really great idea to move up, down, and throughout the company.

Yeah, agreed. Totally. Ooh. Let's talk about growth and innovation, which I think is what Cisco thinks about when it comes to AI. Let's expand a little bit on that.

Yeah, it's interesting because something we've known for a long time is that within a company to get the most from your teams and to have them feel like they want to innovate and they want to push, you do have to have this element of safety and trust within the organization.

Yeah.

And I do think that is so important for us. And so when you talk about fear, I think the best thing that we can do as leaders is be incredibly transparent.

Yeah.

And so that's why for us, projects like Teaming with AI, bring everyone in together because we're co-creating across the company around some of those biggest opportunities. I think what's going to be next for us is to really start to look at how work gets done. And there was a really interesting piece of data that I heard from the team last week, and that was they studied a year of someone's check-ins on Teamspace.

Yep.

And what they found is for this individual, his work fits into 9 different job categories. Oh, yeah. I think we can all relate to that.

Absolutely.

We feel like, gosh, we have so many different different elements of our roles. And so I guess what I would say is that as we look at growth and innovation, we have to have that backdrop of safety and trust. I think we have to look at the work, but we have to look at it together with those that are closest to the opportunities.

Sure.

And remain open for some of the changes that are there. I think one of our biggest risks is that if we look at the AI opportunities within our silos, we're going to miss some of the bigger opportunities to really look across. And I think the way that we get around that is focusing on the outcomes for our customers.

Absolutely. And I think that falls in line with the whole idea of trust. And I have to say, as an employee at Cisco, and you've probably heard this 1,000 times, more than that, I'm downplaying it, but that is one of the things I appreciate most about this company, about the transparency from our leadership. And I think that permeates everything. And it's probably also one of the reasons why our customers and our partners feel that trust as well. So it's just, it's a great thing to have.

It's funny because I remember when the understanding first came out that You can't take your internal culture and then shift it to your employees. Whatever that culture is, that's what your customers experience as well. That's right. Right? And so they're one and the same. And so when we have that trust and when we have that confidence and that safety, our customers feel that too.

Absolutely. We just talked about the AI Readiness Index, but I want to talk about another important study that just came out, the AI Workforce Consortium. Could you tell us a little bit about what that is and why the findings are so important when we think about the workforce?

Yeah, I'm so proud of this work. So this is the second report that we've done. We did it with a cross-section of companies. I'll name a few of them. OK. Google, SAP, Microsoft, Accenture, Eightfold, and a few others. And what was really amazing is that I think when you have these big transitions, Coming together to solve for more, for all, I think is really important. And so when we first started this, what we wanted to do was help communities understand how roles were going to be changing. I have to tell you, when we got the first report, I was like, oh my goodness, this is more than that. First, it validated that we see technology roles in a very similar way.

Right.

The second thing is I think it's a bit of a blueprint for us. So this second report, which just came out, is a study of these roles over the last year. Right. What was interesting is 10 of the roles are support roles. And there were some really great insights there as well. And we looked at how AI is intersecting these roles. And what we found in the report is that sure enough, 78% of roles are going to be impacted by AI.

Right.

And that could be just places where AI automates a portion of the role, elevates the role. The coolest thing is within the report, we have these skill stories.

Okay.

And so we can make it really clear, hey, this is what someone was doing as a cybersecurity analyst a year ago, and here's what they're doing now. The second thing that I would say is it reinforces the fact that new roles are emerging.

Yeah.

And what we saw in the report is the role that has grown the most is the AI risk and compliance role, which candidly didn't exist 5 years ago. Yeah. And now we see 234% growth in that role alone.

Wow.

And it just reminds us that new opportunities are coming up. And I think the report does a nice job of getting to the skills that are required for existing and new roles as well.

I love that. And it's a good reminder, too, that the word impact can be positive. It doesn't mean that it's a negative thing. And I think a lot of people hear impact and they're like, impacted. Well, you know, an impact can be a good thing.

Yeah. And I think, again, going back to this conversation around transparency, the more that we can say, hey, this is how we think this role will be impacted, I do think it's positive. Right. Where you're going to get a helping hand. Right. Where you may get an AI coworker.

That's right.

To help you do the job so that you can look maybe more holistically or assess insights as opposed to gathering them.

Sure.

I think it'll be really powerful.

Agreed. We're kind of talking about what's happening now with AI, but if we could peer into the future, I'm gonna put some music on that. If we could peer into the future, what do you think the next 5 years look like with regard to AI and just work?

It's so funny. We had Kevin Will join a senior leadership offsite that we had.

Sure.

And he was talking to us about how the planning that he does, A.B., is in days and weeks and that he can't look out a quarter or 2 because of how things are changing.

Yeah, for sure.

Now, I think for us, we have to do both. We have to be open to the change, but also being clear with some of the goals that we have. When I think about it, what I look at is we're going to have to be a lot more agile. Yeah. As it relates to how we work together within the company. I think that the skilling part for all of us is going to become like a weekly conversation. And going back to the consortium for a moment, we have over 200 training offerings in that report.

Oh, wow.

And so what that tells us is that content is there. Now it's more about how do we build the behaviors and habits where we're taking that content in as needed to be our very best. I think that's going to be one of the changes that we see more and more. I think we're going to see these areas where we're leveraging AI to truly have positive impact on our customers and the broader ecosystem. And I think there's just going to be a lot more movement across the company as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like it. And it sounds exciting. Exciting time to be learning about AI, actually. So.

Absolutely.

So I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast that we're here during Climate Week and Global Citizen is happening this week. Of course, the festival is tomorrow. You've been very attached and passionate about that organization. So what— how does that organization work with Cisco? What's the important thing to know about how we work with Global Citizen?

So in the beginning, our partnership focused on how do we together drive positive impact in the world? And Global Citizen's mission is to eradicate extreme poverty. Right. this week that I think it's so bold for an organization to say we want to eradicate poverty.

Yeah.

And I think we need more of those courageous beliefs and then the actions behind them. So I would say initially there was something so beautiful about their purpose. The second thing that I saw in working with Global Citizen is that they have the bottoms-up, top-down motion too. Got it. Right. And so to get into a festival, you have to do a good deed. And what we see is so many people around the world taking actions, which is really amazing. And then what we see is on stage, governments coming in and making huge commitments to education, to climate, energy access.

Yeah.

And that motion is one that I think is really powerful for us. I would say over the last couple of years or so, we also now see how our technology intersects Global Citizen. And so as an example, this weekend we will have like, I think almost 75 customers with us at the Global Citizen Festival.

Wow.

We will show them how we connect and protect an event this large. There's going to be 60,000 people at Central Park.

Right.

We're going to be able to showcase our technology all against the backdrop of really cool music and intentionality about how we drive impact in the world.

I love that. And to that point, we even have NetAcad students who I met yesterday who are helping deploy some of that technology to make everybody stay connected and safe. So it's just, it's like a full circle, you know, those who are interested, those who are starting careers, and those who are deeply embedded. It's just a great thing overall.

Yeah, it is. And I think, There are certain things like music and sport that really bring the world together.

Right.

And I think it's really positive for us to lean into that. I think at this moment, people need these positive examples of how we can come together.

Absolutely. Well, I think this is such a great place to wrap up the conversation. Fran, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to come and talk with me in person. I just really appreciate your time and your, and your thought leadership.

This was fun. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. Yeah! That works.