Elaine Mason

SVP, Purpose Strategy and Innovation

As the Senior Vice President of Purpose Strategy and Innovation at Cisco, Elaine leads teams focused on the strategic alignment and delivery of Cisco’s work around purpose. Her organization connects strategy and innovation efforts across Cisco’s People, Policy, and Purpose functions, building the company’s capability to integrate sustainability, policy, people, and social impact efforts into the flow of work.

Prior to her role at Cisco, Elaine was the Chief Talent Officer at Splunk where she led a 200+ person organization focused on talent practices at Splunk, overseeing Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Careers, Learning and Leadership, Workforce Strategy and Organization Effectiveness. In her tenure at Splunk, Elaine reshaped the way talent practices were delivered, implementing design-thinking for solution development, and leveraging agile methods to drive team development.

Previous to Splunk, Elaine served as a Vice President of People and Communities at Cisco, leading the creation of Emerging and Inclusive Communities at Cisco. She has also held roles as the HR Business Partner for Cisco’s Corporate Strategy, Emerging Technologies, and Innovation businesses and led Cisco’s People Planning, Design and Analytics team, a transformation function that worked with senior executives on executive talent and performance management, workforce analytics and planning, organization effectiveness and design thinking. While at Cisco,

Before her time at Cisco, Elaine held various senior leadership roles in Human Resources and Technology at American Express, Viacom and MTV Networks.

Elaine serves as a Board Member for the Taproot Foundation and is a board alumnus of Imperative, Achieve Mission, Organization Development Network, and Women in Technology NY. Elaine holds a Master of Science in Organization Development from Pepperdine University.

As the Senior Vice President of Purpose Strategy and Innovation at Cisco, Elaine leads teams focused on the strategic alignment and delivery of Cisco’s work around purpose. Her organization connects strategy and innovation efforts across Cisco’s People, Policy, and Purpose functions, building the company’s capability to integrate sustainability, policy, people, and social impact efforts into the flow of work.

Prior to her role at Cisco, Elaine was the Chief Talent Officer at Splunk where she led a 200+ person organization focused on talent practices at Splunk, overseeing Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Careers, Learning and Leadership, Workforce Strategy and Organization Effectiveness. In her tenure at Splunk, Elaine reshaped the way talent practices were delivered, implementing design-thinking for solution development, and leveraging agile methods to drive team development.

Previous to Splunk, Elaine served as a Vice President of People and Communities at Cisco, leading the creation of Emerging and Inclusive Communities at Cisco. She has also held roles as the HR Business Partner for Cisco’s Corporate Strategy, Emerging Technologies, and Innovation businesses and led Cisco’s People Planning, Design and Analytics team, a transformation function that worked with senior executives on executive talent and performance management, workforce analytics and planning, organization effectiveness and design thinking. While at Cisco,

Before her time at Cisco, Elaine held various senior leadership roles in Human Resources and Technology at American Express, Viacom and MTV Networks.

Elaine serves as a Board Member for the Taproot Foundation and is a board alumnus of Imperative, Achieve Mission, Organization Development Network, and Women in Technology NY. Elaine holds a Master of Science in Organization Development from Pepperdine University.