Chambers readies Cisco throne for successor

Long-standing chief lists potential successors after hinting he will retire by 2016

Cisco chief executive John Chambers has fired the gun on the race to become his successor after hinting he may stand down in two to four years.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Chambers said the heir to his throne would probably be plucked from within the company.

He named chief operating officer Gary Moore, executive vice president of worldwide operations Robert Lloyd, senior vice president of the Americas Chuck Robbins and senior vice president of global services Edzard Overbeek as leading candidates.

Overbeek will be no stranger to some UK channel partners, having led Cisco's EMEA business for some of the past decade.

Having been at the helm since 1995 and led the firm through a period of boom, a dot com crash and subsequent recovery, Chambers has become something of an institution at the $46bn (£28.4bn)-turnover company. But at 63, he hinted he would pass on the baton soon.

"You begin to look at how these transitions occur, and the job of the board and myself is to make sure this next one goes really smooth," Chambers told Bloomberg.

"Assuming the board wants me to, and assuming the shareholders do, I will stay on as chairman after that."

He expressed some sympathy for HP boss Meg Whitman, arguing she had been dealt a "hard hand to play" in reviving the firm's fortunes.

"I like Meg Whitman a lot," Chambers said. "She is doing this purely out of the goodness of her heart, and I would have told her not to."

He also hinted that the vendor would plough on with its strategy of acquiring smaller companies to expand its video, collaboration, datacentre, mobility and security clout.

Larger targets, such as Red Hat and Citrix, carry too high a price tag, he said.