Strategy & Planning Manager

Cisco•Austin, NC

About The Position

The Strategic Enterprise PMO in Cisco’s Office of the CEO sits at the center of Cisco’s most critical enterprise priorities. We work directly with C-level executives and senior leaders to turn strategy into action, accelerate durable growth, and manage enterprise-level risk. This Strategy & Planning Manager is not a traditional PMO role. Our team is brought into high-stakes, cross-company initiatives where speed, structure, judgment, and accountability matter. We clarify complex problems, align senior stakeholders, build operating models, drive decisions, and keep execution moving across Cisco. Your Impact You will be part of a high-caliber team with direct exposure to executive decision-making and the opportunity to shape how Cisco delivers its most important work. You are a practical operator who creates clarity quickly, communicates with sound judgment, and with the ability to drive progress across matrixed teams.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree and 7+ years of experience in strategy, business operations, program management, consulting, or a related field
Support of enterprise-level initiatives and business leadership teams
Strong PowerPoint, Excel, project/program management, and communication skills
Experience preparing leadership updates, dashboards, or decision materials
Ability to work across U.S. and international time zones, as needed
Ability to manage confidential and high-sensitivity information

Nice To Haves

MBA or advanced degree
Experience in a technology company, management consulting firm, enterprise PMO, strategy, or business operations role managing programs in matrixed organizations
Strong analytical, synthesis, and storytelling skills
Hands-on experience with tools such as Asana, Airtable, Cursor, Codex, LLM chat models, AI agents, dashboards, workflow automation, or similar productivity platforms
Ability to use AI tools to summarize inputs, draft executive updates, identify risks, automate workflows, and improve portfolio visibility
Familiarity with go-to-market, product, security, AI, infrastructure, or competitive strategy initiatives

Responsibilities

Help drive strategic initiatives tied to Cisco's enterprise priorities, including AI-era cyber defense, global business acceleration, and competitive go-to-market execution.
Translate executive direction into clear workstreams, owners, milestones, risks, dependencies and next steps
Create structure in ambiguous work by helping define decision rights, escalation paths, operating cadences, executive updates, and sustainable operating models.
Coordinate across product, sales, strategy, finance, legal, marketing, communications, operations, government affairs, and other functions
Prepare executive-ready updates that summarize progress, risks, blockers, decisions needed and recommendations.
Support portfolio discipline across intake, execution, operating model readiness, and business handoff.
Build scalable, AI-enabled ways of working across templates, dashboards, reporting, workflows, and executive summaries.

Benefits

medical, dental and vision insurance
a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution
paid parental leave
short and long-term disability coverage
basic life insurance
grants of Cisco restricted stock units
10 paid holidays per full calendar year
1 floating holiday for non-exempt employees
1 paid day off for employee’s birthday
paid year-end holiday shutdown
4 paid days off for personal wellness
16 days of paid vacation time per full calendar year, accrued at rate of 4.92 hours per pay period for full-time employees (non-exempt)
flexible vacation time off program (exempt)
80 hours of sick time off provided on hire date and each January 1st thereafter
up to 80 hours of unused sick time carried forward from one calendar year to the next
Additional paid time away may be requested to deal with critical or emergency issues for family members
Optional 10 paid days per full calendar year to volunteer
annual bonuses