Wendy Mars, President EMEAR, Cisco, sits down with John and Dave at Cisco Live EU Barcelona 2020 in Barcelona, Spain. #CLEU #Cisco #theCUBE https://siliconangle.com/2020/02/03/ciscos-wendy-mars-reveals-successfully-cross-digital-bridge-cleur-womenintech/ Cisco’s Wendy Mars reveals how to cross the digital bridge Digital disruption is more than a buzzword. It’s a real problem. Even the most entrenched, complacent companies are realizing that offering customers mobile apps and online access is not a fad, but as a necessary response to the cultural sea change in how society communicates. “Our business models as organizations are fundamentally changing,” said Wendy Mars (pictured), president of EMEAR at Cisco Systems Inc. Mars spoke with John Furrier and Dave Vellante, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Cisco Live event in Barcelona. They discussed how to adapt to the challenges of cloud, as well as Mars’ vision of the market from the perspective of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia. (* Disclosure below.) This week theCUBE spotlights Wendy Mars in its Women in Tech feature. Coming together at Cisco Mars’ career started with a bachelor’s degree in electronic engineering from the University of York, followed by an master’s degree in operational research from Lancaster University. She then joined global finance company Morgan Stanley & Co LLC as a technologist, working in its offices in London, New York, and Tokyo. Settling in New York, she spent over a decade at information-technology consulting company Thrupoint Inc., rising to become the company’s chief technology officer. In 2008, she joined Cisco as director of systems engineering, moving back to Great Britain to join the company’s EMEAR division. In August 2018, Mars became the president of EMEAR. As leader of EMEAR, Mars is responsible for over $12 billion of annual sales and managing operations across 123 countries with over 13,000 employees in the region, according to her official biography. That’s impressive regardless of gender, but Mars’ down-to-earth personality makes her accomplishments seem achievable. Her LinkedIn and Twitter accounts show her support of women and minorities, as she congratulates and encourages others. As an executive sponsor of Cisco’s Connected Women community, she is responsible for driving initiatives to encourage diversity within the company and the technology industry. Although there is no company, so far, that has broken the gender and diversity divide, Cisco is working to get there. The company rose to be ranked second on the Forbes Best Workplaces for Diversity List for 2019, and the list of executives for the U.S. comes close to meeting the 50/50 gender equality mark. With this week’s feature, Mars joins Cisco’s Susie Wee in the list of theCUBE’s Women in Tech alumni. Cisco links businesses Coming together is a theme that Cisco can easily embrace, in workplace diversity, mission and technology. In fact, “building a bridge to possible” was the new branding unveiled in 2018 as the company embraced cloud and moved toward being a software company. “[Cisco] connects businesses; that’s been their mission from day one,” Furrier said during theCUBE’s keynote analysis at Cisco Live. In 2020 the message is still the same, with the company remaining focused on transitioning into the new demands of networking brought about by cloud. “They’ve got to take that message, bring it up to where the applications are driving business model changes and results,” Furrier said. Mars agreed: “For us within Cisco, that linkage of the application layer through into the infrastructure, into the network and bringing that together is the most powerful thing because that’s the insight and the value our customers are looking for.” Companies are under pressure to go digital, and technology is not the answer EMEAR stands for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Russia. Overseeing a territory that spans such a diversity of cultures in all kinds of industries opens Mars to a unique perspective on the most important topics preoccupying businesses. ... Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Cisco Live. (* Disclosure: Cisco sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Cisco nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)