Former Motorola CTO joins Cisco

Cisco Systems today announced that former Motorola Chief Technology Officer Padmasree Warrior will be joining the company as its new CTO, just days after her resignation from Motorola. Warrior brings 23 years of experience in mobile communications at Motorola to the Internet networking supplier.

In her role as CTO, Warrior will report to Cisco's chairman and chief executive officer, John Chambers, who called Warrior a “technology visionary” and an “excellent leader with a strong industry voice and business acumen” who will drive Cisco’s efforts to become a strong player in on-demand mobility.

"We are headed into a new era that we define as the second phase of the Internet, driven by collaboration and Web 2.0 technologies where the network becomes the platform for communications and IT,” Chambers said in a prepared statement. “It is an exciting time with new frontiers and opportunities for innovation. Padmasree's new role as CTO will help to develop and promote Cisco's future technology leadership.”

Warrior discussed her appointment to CTO on her first official post on Cisco’s blog. She called Cisco the company whose leadership legacy defines “The Network” in many ways. While today it is a company driving many new paradigms in communications and information technology, she said, in the future “it will be a company poised to lead the industry to the next phase of Internet evolution.”

Warrior will be the first CTO Cisco has had since 2005, when Charles Giancarlo vacated the position to become Cisco’s chief development officer. In an interview on Tuesday, Warrior said her job will be to further detail the company's technology strategy and to identify new opportunities and the partnerships that may be needed to take advantage of them.

It has been a tumultuous week for management at Chicago-based Motorola. First CEO Ed Zander announced he would leave the world's third-largest cell phone handset maker last Friday to be replaced by chief operating officer Greg Brown. And now the departure of Warrior, just one business day after Zander, has left the CTO position temporarily in the hands of chief strategy officer Rich Nottenberg. Warrior had worked at Motorola since 1984 holding leadership roles in the semiconductor and energy systems groups. She had served as CTO since 2003.