Senior Vice President Doug Merritt is responsible for the go-to-market strategies for Cisco. His focus is to promote differentiation and value through unique combinations of Cisco's product and solutions portfolio.

Prior to joining Cisco, Merritt led Silicon Valley startup Baynote through a period of significant investment and rapid growth within the emerging personalization and digital marketing optimization industry. Previously he was Executive Vice President (EVP) of Global On Demand Applications at SAP, where he was also a corporate officer and member of the Executive Council for SAP AG. In this role he accelerated the rate of new customer acquisition by over six times in less than one year. His tenure at SAP also included positions as EVP Premier Customer Network, where he delivered greater than 100 percent revenue attainment, and EVP Business User Applications, where he reorganized his group and led it to more than tenfold revenue growth over three years.

Prior to SAP, Merritt was at PeopleSoft, where he led the company's $1 billion Human Capital Management division as Group Vice President/General Manager. Before that, he was founder, president, and CEO of Icarian, Inc., which was later acquired by Workstream Corp., a pioneer in the online human capital talent management category. He also served in various leadership positions for Patrol Software (acquired by BMC Software), Powersoft (acquired by Sybase), Oracle Corporation, and Accenture/Andersen Consulting.

Merritt holds a bachelor's degree in business from the University of the Pacific in California.