John Chambers Named 'Most Influential Person in Communications' by Top Trade Magazine

October 10, 2003

By Jason Deign, News@Cisco

Cisco® President and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers has been voted 'Most Influential Person in Communications' by readers of Total Telecom, a major trade magazine based in the UK.

The accolade was bestowed upon Chambers on October 6, in London at the annual World Communications Awards (WCA), hosted by Total Telecom in conjunction with the European Competitive Telecommunications Association.

The 'Most Influential Person in Communications' category this year replaced a Lifetime Achievement award that has previously gone to industry figures such as telecommunications pioneer Craig McCaw or Dick Callahan, founder of US WEST International and TeleWest.

To win the award, Chambers was first listed as one of 49 candidates nominated by the WCA panel to go forward to an online vote where readers were invited to submit their top five (including suggestions for a 50th candidate) over a period of three weeks.

Based on the hundreds of thousands of votes received, Total Telecom reduced the shortlist to 20 names and asked readers to select their top 10, in no particular order. John Chambers was the person most frequently mentioned among 3,000 submissions in this final round.

His selection for the award - aimed at recognizing the person who has had the biggest impact on the industry in the past 12 months - reflects the importance of the current shift towards IP among traditional telecommunications companies, said David Molony, Total Telecom's editor.

"John was chosen the final winner out of a group which included some of the biggest names in the global business," he said. "He was pretty much always in the top three throughout the full month of voting, in fact.

"In all the reporting we've been doing this year on services, we have got the strong impression that big carriers are ready to do IP services now, even through to the voice network."

Total Telecom magazine, which earlier this year replaced two of Europe's most respected telecommunications trade journals, Communications Week International and Communications International, is published by Emap Business International.

It goes out monthly to 22,000 telecommunications decision makers in Europe and Asia, while its Internet-based sister publication, Total Telecom Online, provides daily news to more than 20,000 paying subscribers and 160,000 registered users worldwide.

John Chambers became president and CEO of Cisco Systems in January 1995. Since then, he has grown the company from US$1.2 billion in annual revenues to its current run-rate of approximately US$18.9 billion.

He said: "It is a great honor to accept this award for the nomination of The Most Influential Person in Telecom by Total Telecom readers.

"The last 24 months have been a time of transition in the global telecom market, as operators have consolidated, implemented cost controls, and developed new service generation strategies.

"Cisco has been very focused on the needs of service providers, and our relationship with our SP customers has evolved over the last two years to one of true partnership. We have a much clearer understanding of the operational and business requirements of this industry, and feel that we are ideally positioned in this marketplace. We have made significant investments in R&D, and truly believe that our packet-based strategy is key to the future of the telecom industry, which is clearly evolving to a packet-based network approach. We are committed to taking this journey with telecom providers and helping them roll out new services as quickly as possible along the way.

Jason Deign is a freelance writer based in Barcelona, Spain.