Charles Giancarlo (charliegian) is an Entrepreneur, Investor, and former senior executive of a Fortune 50 high tech company. Mr. Giancarlo has over 30 years of experience in the semiconductor, communications and networking industries. From 2008 until 2013 he was a Managing Director of Silver Lake and served as the Head of their operating group. A senior executive at Cisco Systems from 1993-2007, Mr. Giancarlo served as Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer of Cisco, leading the company’s overall product development and product management activities. As Chief Development Officer, Mr. Giancarlo directed the activities of half of Cisco’s employees and over 80% of its revenue, and was directly responsible for Cisco’s expansion into a large number of new markets and technologies.
Mr. Giancarlo joined Cisco when the company acquired Kalpana, Inc., the pioneer in Ethernet switching, where he was Vice President of Products and Corporate Development. His first position at Cisco was Vice President of Business Development, where he developed Cisco’s merger and acquisition strategy and practice. While at Cisco, Giancarlo was directly responsible for the creation of many of Cisco’s advanced technologies including Ethernet Switching, WiFi, Security, IP Telephony, and TelePresence, as well as Cisco entry into major new markets such as the small and medium and consumer markets, consumer video and WebEx.
Both prior to and subsequent to Cisco Mr. Giancarlo founded has founded a number of companies. Mr. Giancarlo was interim CEO of Avaya in 2008 and is currently Chairman of the Board. In addition, he serves on the boards of Accenture, Arista, Imperva and ServiceNow as well as several other high tech startup companies. Mr. Giancarlo holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Brown University where he serves on the Board of Trustees, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley where he serves on the Board of Advisors, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
My interests are Angel Investing, Skiing, Sailing, Travel, Food and Cooking, reading History and Physics.
I am originally from the NY metro area but moved to Silicon Valley in 1988.
