Cisco Names Bahr's Replacement as Channel Boss

Five-year Cisco veteran Oliver Tuszik is the vendor’s new senior vice president overseeing the global partner organization, following the resignation of Wendy Bahr last month.

Bahr had been with Cisco for 18 years. She opted to remain with the company as it transitioned to a new channel chief.

Bahr was appointed Cisco global channel chief in 2015 when Bruce Klein stepped down from the job during an executive shake-up. In her prior position, she led the America’s Partner Organization. Bahr worked with Cisco channel partners throughout her entire career with the company.

Tuszik has worked as the country leader for Cisco in Germany for the past five years. In his new role, he’s responsible for creating alignment, simplifying tools, processes, programs and offers to help partners succeed with Cisco.

Oliver Tuszik

Oliver Tuszik

Prior to joining Cisco, Tuszik was with Compucenter Germany, a Cisco partner, for about nine years. He was the CEO for five years following his position as managing director, which he held for four years.

Similar to Bahr, Tuszik is stepping into his new role at a time of executive shuffling at Cisco. Jonathan Rosenberg, chief technology officer for the company’s collaboration business, announced his intended departure recently, as did Hilton Romanski, chief strategy officer at Cisco, earlier this month.

Perhaps as an inside, rather than outside the company, guy, Tuszik is less likely to shake things up. Yet, like for many vendors, change is coming rapidly.

“Like all legacy hardware companies, Cisco is shifting its portfolio – and so its partner offers – more toward a software- and services-centric business. Wendy [Bahr] did a great deal to begin that process and it will be up to Oliver to drive that strategy through its next, and some would argue, most difficult stage,” Cyndi Privett, vice president of research and co-founder of Viewpoint Research, told us.

In a Cisco profile of Tuszik, earlier this year, Tuszik talked about what he sees as the top technology trends in 2018 — he named four: autonomous and networked things in IoT; more intuitive networks, referring to intent-based networking; artificial intelligence and machine learning; and blockchain technology.

In the profile, partners also get a sense of how Tuszik views the drivers for digitization in Germany, namely the country’s passion for engineering; however, he also points out that Germans tend not to be early adopters of technology.

“Our approach is long-term in its orientation: Trends have to prove to be sustainable. We only develop and implement technology when we are convinced of its application. Until we get there, we need more time for discussions, planning and structuring than others,” he said.

Tuszik will report to Gerri Elliott, chief sales and marketing officer at Cisco, who was appointed to that position in April.

Cisco partners will be able to learn more about Tuszik at the Cisco Partner Summit in November.