Kelly Jones

Kelly Jones is the Chief People Officer at Cisco. In this role, she oversees the critical functions, policies, and operations that unleash the full potential of Cisco’s people across the employee lifecycle, which is fundamental to instilling a Conscious Culture across the company and advancing Cisco’s purpose to Power an Inclusive Future for All.

Kelly leads the People & Communities organization, which comprises People Experience, Executive & Board, Talent Solutions, and Community Partners. Together, this ecosystem provides holistic care for the well-being of Cisco’s people and designs, develops, and implements the tools that enable business, career, and personal development.

A teacher at her core, Kelly is driven by a firm belief that unleashing potential in other people is the foundation of leadership. In her over 15 years at Cisco, Kelly has developed deep experience building award-winning, high-performing global teams. She joined Cisco in Talent Acquisition and went on to serve as Vice President of Join & Connect and then as Senior Vice President & Global Head of Talent Solutions. Kelly is focused on developing data-driven, creative solutions to enable business transformation, embedding inclusion and transparency into all of Cisco’s recruiting and talent mobility processes, and enabling the people of Cisco to become the most successful versions of themselves.

Prior to joining Cisco, Kelly served as Vice President of Sales & Operations for Comsys and was Principal Owner of her own executive placement and consulting firm.

Kelly is deeply passionate about social justice and accessibility and serves on the board of HeadCount, a non-partisan organization that uses the power of music to register voters and promote participation in democracy. She is also an executive sponsor of Cisco’s Connected Disability Action Network (CDAN) and Cisco Green. Kelly attended North Carolina State University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in pre-law. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, daughter, and rescue dog Henri.