[Techtaffy Newsdesk]
Cisco has appointed Marc Benioff, co-founder and CEO of salesforce.com, and Dr. Kristina M. Johnson, CEO of Enduring Hydro, and former Under Secretary of Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, to its board of directors effective August 1, 2012.
Mr. Benioff, 47, and a a 30-year veteran of the software industry, co-founded salesforce.com in February of 1999 and has served as chairman of the board of directors since its inception. Prior to launching salesforce.com, he spent 13 years at Oracle.
Ms. Johnson, 55, currently serves as CEO of Enduring Hydro, a clean energy development and consulting company. In her previous role as under secretary of energy, she was responsible for managing a broad $10.5 billion energy and environment portfolio. Prior to this role, Ms. Johnson served as provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at The Johns Hopkins University and dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. She currently serves on the board of directors of Boston Scientific Corporation and The AES Corporation. Ms. Johnson is also an inventor and entrepreneur, holding more than 45 U.S. patents. Ms. Johnson has received the John Fritz Medal, widely considered the highest award given in the engineering profession.
With the new appointments, Cisco’s board now consists of 14 members, including Carol A. Bartz, former CEO, Yahoo; M. Michele Burns, former chairman and CEO, Mercer; Michael D. Capellas, former CEO, VCE Company; Larry R. Carter, former SVP, Office of the Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems; John T. Chambers, chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems; Brian L. Halla, former chairman and CEO, National Semiconductor; John L. Hennessy, Ph.D., president, Stanford University; Richard M. Kovacevich, retired chairman and CEO, Wells Fargo; Roderick C. McGeary, chairman, Tegile Systems; Arun Sarin, KBE, senior advisor, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and former CEO of Vodafone Group; Steven M. West, founder and partner, Emerging Company Partners; and Jerry Yang, co-founder and former chief Yahoo, Yahoo.