Founder and CEO, JC2 Ventures Chairman Emeritus, Cisco John Chambers is the founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures where he focuses on helping disruptive startups from around the world build and scale, while also promoting the broader development of startup nations and a startup world. Prior to founding JC2 Ventures, Chambers served as CEO, Chairman and Executive Chairman at Cisco Systems. During his 25+ year tenure at Cisco, he helped grow the company from $70 million when he joined in 1991, to $1.2 billion when he became CEO in 1995, to $47 billion when he stepped down as CEO in 2015. Chambers has received numerous awards for his leadership, including being named the number two “Best-Performing CEOs in the World” in 2015 from Harvard Business Review and receiving the Edison Achievement Award for Innovation. Chambers has worked closely with government leaders around the world, including nine U.S. Secretaries of State. He also served two American presidents as Vice Chairman of President George W. Bush’s National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC) and as a member of President Bill Clinton’s Trade Policy Committee.
