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Steve Clayton
Steve Clayton on LinkedIn 
Follow @Steve Clayton is Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at Cisco, serving on the company’s executive leadership team. He leads Cisco’s global communications function, shaping the company’s brand, reputation, and influence through bold storytelling that aligns strategy, innovation, and culture.
Steve oversees a global team responsible for elevating Cisco’s narrative, transforming communications into a strategic growth function, and ensuring Cisco’s voice shapes the conversations defining the future of networking, security, and AI.
Before joining Cisco, Steve spent more than 28 years at Microsoft, where he most recently served as Vice President of Communications Strategy. In this role, he reinvented how Microsoft ran the communications business using AI, spanning automation and operations, measurement and insights. He also led media and agency management, and global PR events along with CEO keynote demos and served as a company spokesperson on Microsoft’s AI strategy, products, and technologies.
Previously, Steve was Vice President of Global Public Affairs, leading teams at the intersection of technology, public policy, and corporate reputation. Prior to that, he was Microsoft’s Chief Storyteller, a role that helped shape Microsoft’s image, culture narrative, and executive storytelling for CEO Satya Nadella.
Steve has worked closely with Microsoft’s CEO and senior leadership team on pivotal moments, including CEO transition, major acquisitions such as Nokia, LinkedIn, and Activision Blizzard, and the company’s cultural reinvention. He is known for translating complex technology into human stories and for building communications organizations that operate as true strategic partners to the business.
Outside of work, he rides his bike slowly up hills, rides his snowboard uncontrollably down hills, and supports Liverpool Football Club through similar peaks and valleys.
Steve Clayton is Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at Cisco, serving on the company’s executive leadership team. He leads Cisco’s global communications function, shaping the company’s brand, reputation, and influence through bold storytelling that aligns strategy, innovation, and culture.
Steve oversees a global team responsible for elevating Cisco’s narrative, transforming communications into a strategic growth function, and ensuring Cisco’s voice shapes the conversations defining the future of networking, security, and AI.
Before joining Cisco, Steve spent more than 28 years at Microsoft, where he most recently served as Vice President of Communications Strategy. In this role, he reinvented how Microsoft ran the communications business using AI, spanning automation and operations, measurement and insights. He also led media and agency management, and global PR events along with CEO keynote demos and served as a company spokesperson on Microsoft’s AI strategy, products, and technologies.
Previously, Steve was Vice President of Global Public Affairs, leading teams at the intersection of technology, public policy, and corporate reputation. Prior to that, he was Microsoft’s Chief Storyteller, a role that helped shape Microsoft’s image, culture narrative, and executive storytelling for CEO Satya Nadella.
Steve has worked closely with Microsoft’s CEO and senior leadership team on pivotal moments, including CEO transition, major acquisitions such as Nokia, LinkedIn, and Activision Blizzard, and the company’s cultural reinvention. He is known for translating complex technology into human stories and for building communications organizations that operate as true strategic partners to the business.
Outside of work, he rides his bike slowly up hills, rides his snowboard uncontrollably down hills, and supports Liverpool Football Club through similar peaks and valleys.
