2017-April-25
Did you know? You can share this story using the social media icons on the left. Please include the hashtag #WeAreCisco. You can also rate and comment on the story below.
Celebrating Administrative Professionals Day with Debbie Gross
In honor of Administrative Professionals Day this Wednesday, we sat down with the Chief Executive Assistant to former CEO John Chambers to find out how her role has changed in 26 years with the company.
Behind every great executive there’s a great—and often unsung—executive assistant. In the case of John Chambers, our legendary executive chairman and former CEO, that EA is Debbie Gross. She landed the job through a newspaper ad in 1991—the same year John joined Cisco.
“I didn’t even know what the Internet was,” says Debbie, a native of Jackson, Mississippi who moved to California in 1973. “I didn’t have a computer.”
At the time, John was senior vice president of worldwide operations, and Cisco was based in Menlo Park with just 564 employees. Four years later, when John became CEO, Debbie’s role greatly expanded. Buried in work, she took on three additional executive assistants to partner with her. As she was scaling to new heights within the organization, she learned through one of her peers about a “new” job title—Chief Executive Assistant (CEA).
“John said I could have it—but not a pay increase,” she quips.
The role had her doing far more than answering phones and managing John’s calendar. She was the liaison between John and his friends, customers and partners. It fell to her to decide who got face time with John and who didn’t. She was responsible for his productivity, his work/life balance and often for building relationships with “the right people” in the company. She says the role honed her emotional intelligence—making her hyper-aware of the messages she was sending, both physically and mentally.
“We are the mirrors of our executive,” Debbie says. “John is a very caring, kind and sensitive person to 73,000 employees, and that’s the kind of person I need to be too. We’re that liaison between the executive and the world.”
A turning point in Debbie’s career was when she took it upon herself to become a leader in Cisco’s EA community. What started as a kind of staff meeting of 13 EAs became the inspiration for numerous administrative initiatives that are now standard at Cisco—such as rewards and recognition, mentorship, and learning and development.
“No other company has this kind of focus for their administrative communities,” she says.
When Debbie was a child, she wanted to be a vet, and later a psychologist—but she eventually realized her strengths lay in customer service. Her first job was in a Kansas hamburger joint called Smacky’s where her uniform was a sailor suit and hat. She got more basic training in customer service as a dollar store employee.
Career highlights? The biggest was discovering her passion for public speaking when she had to give a presentation on Cisco’s culture to a group of new administrative hires. She has since gone on to give presentations all over the world.
“I walked out of that room floating on a cloud,” she recalls of that first nerve-racking effort. “If you can find your passion early on, you will go far in life.”
Other highlights include becoming certified to teach the Star Achievement administrative training program, winning the top Silicon Valley Admin Award and meeting the late Shimon Peres, former president and prime minister of Israel. He’s one of numerous world leaders and celebrities Debbie has met through her work. She has a wall of photos of herself with the likes of Colin Powell, Desmond Tutu, King Abdullah, Jerry Seinfeld and George W. Bush.
What Debbie most loves about the company’s culture is its foundation of caring for employees. Her favorite company value is “Making amazing things happen.” And she loves Cisco’s top-notch health benefits, including the fact that San Jose employees can go to a clinic on site. And then there’s the option to get her gas tank filled while she works through Cisco’s Booster Fuels perk.
“I haven’t been to a gas station in months,” she says.
Perhaps surprisingly, what Debbie most loves about her job is not the chance to fly the world with John in a private jet (“More work—certainly not glamorous—it’s long hours and many time zones”). It’s the endless variety of her role, and the ability it affords her to be creative.
Her advice to those contemplating an admin position at Cisco? “Be ready—we run fast, we run hard,” she says. “We work in a very reactive environment and are very reliant on tools and technology. You have to embrace that, to be very flexible and adaptable. If you’re not good at change, you won’t survive here.”
As for Administrative Professionals Day, Debbie says she sees it as an opportunity for people to stop and thank the various admin professionals who help to keep the company running smoothly.
“It’s probably one of the most important roles in any company,” she says. “It’s a matter of becoming aware of how valuable these people are—and to not take them for granted. We get taken for granted all the time.”
Are you ready to explore job opportunities at Cisco?
Connect everything. Innovate everywhere. Benefit everyone.
Share your thoughts!
Log in to rate and commentShare your thoughts on the story here!