Graham Allan

Graham Allan is Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel at Cisco Systems - Strategic Programs & Legal Operations. Graham is responsible for the strategy and execution of Cisco Legal’s Early in Career, Law Firm Engagement and Management, Pro Bono and Learning & Development Programs and the Department’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiatives.  The Legal Department’s Operations team also reports into Graham, including the teams responsible for Legal’s platforms, tools and applications, data analytics, e-discovery and forensics, knowledge and content management and training infrastructure.

During his twenty plus years at Cisco, Graham has led different teams in the Legal Department, including leading the European legal team, heading (twice) the global team supporting sales, marketing, Cisco financing function and channels; managing the legal team supporting engineering globally and running the legal group supporting Cisco’s Service Provider and IoT businesses for both the engineering and sales teams. He has also led the Legal team supporting Cisco’s acquisitions, divestitures, and investments and was Chief of Staff for both Cisco’s current and previous Chief Legal Officers.

Graham joined Cisco in 1999, in London, from law firm Baker & McKenzie. Graham worked for Baker & McKenzie from 1989-99, in their London and San Francisco/Palo Alto offices. During his time at Baker & McKenzie, Graham was a member of the intellectual property and information technology group and handled both litigation and commercial transactions. He was made a partner in 1998.

Graham has a law degree from the University of Manchester, UK, studied at the College of Law in Chester, UK and has a Diploma in IP Law from the University of Bristol.

Graham is on the Management Board for the Cisco Heritage Center and has served on the Board of the American Liver Foundation.  After twenty years in the Bay Area in California, Graham and family moved to Portland Oregon in April 2022.