Laurent Philonenko, vice president and chief technology officer of Cisco's Collaboration Technology Group, is responsible for strategy and direction of the collaboration technologies, end-to-end solution architecture across collaboration, as well as ensuring consistent and instinctive user experiences across the collaboration portfolio. In his role as CTO, he is instrumental in inspiring and fostering innovation and creativity across the engineering organization, as well as nurturing the senior technical talent and fostering thought leadership in the collaboration industry. Other areas of influence include strategic alliances and partnerships, standardization practices, and acquisitions in support of the business strategy.
Prior roles in his nine years at Cisco include vice president and general manager of the Customer Contact Business Unit, Unified Communications Business Unit, and Clients and Mobility Business Unit.
Prior to joining Cisco, Laurent was president and CEO of Genesys Telecommunications, a leading provider of contact center solutions. In his tenure at Genesys he also held the roles of chief technical officer and chief operations officer. Prior to Genesys, he worked at Alcatel as the senior vice president in charge of network software solutions, including intelligent networks and network management.
Laurent's career has also encompassed sales, strategy, marketing and development positions in the IT and telecommunications industry. He has had global assignments in five countries (France, US, Belgium, Italy and Morocco) and is currently based in San Jose, California, USA. He is a co-author of 20:20 CRM, a reference book on contact centers and customer relationship management (CRM), and is an inventor on a number of US patents and applications.
Laurent is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and holds a master in Management Science from Paris University.