Voices of Inclusion
The power of connection
Our people tell the best stories about the power of connecting and collaborating.
Voices that share experiences and inspire
Our employees and teams directly see and experience the benefits of accelerating extraordinary diverse talent, breaking through barriers, sparking new ideas, and igniting innovation.
Our people are creating the moments that matter at Cisco and they help to make our company one where everyone thrives.
Find out what they’ve learned – about the power of connection – about the world – and about themselves.
Employee Stories
A passion for women’s empowerment
Sabina Chaudhuri
For Sabina Chaudhuri, empowerment is all about finding your voice and deciding what your personal platform will be.
As a Business Systems Analyst in IT and a leader in Cisco’s Early Career Network, she’s not only making her voice heard, but helping other women to do the same. She was crowned Miss Silicon Valley 2017 and is leveraging her title to bring attention to her passion project – the Miss CEO Ambassador program, which, strives to develop the next generation of female leaders.
A UC Davis alum with a degree in managerial economics, she credits her Dad for getting her into tech. Ask Sabina what she enjoys most about her career at Cisco and she’ll tell you, “It’s the people and the opportunity to follow my passion and take risks.” That includes participating in Cisco’s Innovate Everywhere Challenge. Her team’s proposal – a text analytics engine that can analyze any type of unstructured data to facilitate decision making – was chosen as a semi-finalist this year. We wouldn’t expect any less from Sabina who believes in the power of role models and champions, something she’s pleased to say she finds in abundance at Cisco.
A dream career in tech
Arodi Grullon Fernandez
Arodi Grullon Fernandez spent 12 years of his career in the U.S. Marine Corps, and was twice deployed to Afghanistan. But he always knew his true passion was technology. So when he finished active duty in 2014, he immediately enrolled in networking classes. After earning two associate degrees in cybersecurity and network management, Arodi was nominated to the Cisco Networking Academy Dream Team. He and other students spent two weeks working side-by-side with IT professionals, setting up and maintaining the massive network that brought Cisco Live US, the company’s largest customer event, to life. For Arodi, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience – one that brought him closer to a career in the cybersecurity field.
“Our team lead had us speak with vice presidents and other experts in the field who shared valuable advice,” he said. This rich experience prepared him to join Cisco’s Veteran Talent Incubation Program (VTIP). The VTIP is part of Cisco’s commitment to the Veterans Jobs Mission, an effort of more than 300 companies to hire 1 million veterans by 2020. After six months of rigorous training, mentoring, corporate culture training, and job shadowing, Arodi earned his Cisco CCNA certification and joined Cisco as a full-time Customer Support Engineer.
With his military experience, networking expertise, and genuine passion for the field, Arodi is confident he has what it takes to thrive in his new career.
