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Inder Sidhu    

Senior VP at Cisco, Author of NYT Bestseller, Expert in Global Business Strategy

Inder Sidhu is the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Planning for Worldwide Operations at Cisco, a global leader in networking and Internet technologies. He also serves as a member of the company's Operating Committee.

From 2006-2010, Sidhu co-led Cisco’s Emerging Countries Council, which drives business growth in key geographies like China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and the Middle East. Additionally, from 2006-2009, he co-led the Enterprise Business Council, responsible for Cisco's corporate business, which accounts for about half of the company’s total revenue. Sidhu has held various executive leadership roles within Cisco since joining the company in 1995, including VP/GM Worldwide Professional Services, VP/GM Advanced Engineering Services, and VP Strategy and Business Development, Customer Advocacy.

In 2010, Sidhu authored "Doing Both: How Cisco Captures Today’s Profit & Drives Tomorrow’s Growth," published by FT Press. The book, which became a New York Times bestseller, discusses how companies like Cisco can achieve greater outcomes by embracing a dual strategy rather than making trade-offs, even in a volatile global economy. The book features insights from other successful companies, such as Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool, and Harley-Davidson, and illustrates how to navigate business dichotomies effectively.

Sidhu's educational background includes an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a Master's degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He also holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. A committed educator, Sidhu guest lectures at prestigious institutions including Harvard Business School, Stanford University, and the Haas School of Business at the University of California – Berkeley. He serves on the Board of Directors of Goodwill of Silicon Valley.

Sidhu resides in Saratoga, California, with his wife and three children.

Speech Topics

Doing Both: Capturing Todays Profit and Driving Tomorrows Growth

The current business landscape is ripe with dichotomies: Run today's business or invest for tomorrow? Nurture innovation or drive operational excellence? Conventional wisdom says that organizations wrestling with two divergent choices will more likely succeed if they select one option over the other and pursue it to fruition. The truth of the matter is that many companies don't succeed when deploying a one-or-the-other type strategy and that there is a much easier path to success: Doing Both. Doing Both means approaching every decision as an opportunity to seize, not a sacrifice to endure. It means avoiding false choices, reduced expectations, and weak compromises. It means finding ways to make each option benefit and mutually reinforce the other. Using concepts from his best-selling book, Cisco Senior Vice President Inder Sidhu explains why doing both is todays best growth strategy. Then, drawing on Ciscos hard-won insights and the experiences of companies like Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool, and Harley-Davidson, Sidhu presents a complete blueprint for doing both across any organization.

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