As Community Relations Senior Manager, Charlinda builds relationships with elected government officials, business leaders and community partners to drive Cisco’s purpose work that strategically aligns to policy, political, and business goals. In doing this work, Charlinda supports Cisco’s Executive Leadership, Sales, and cross-functional teams to bolster community growth and impact.

Prior to Charlinda’s current role, she was the Business Management Lead managing the business operational strategy for the launch of Cisco’s Collaboration Center in Atlanta. As the “connection tissue”, Charlinda program managed enablement of all cross-functional partners such as Engineering, Government Affairs, IT, Marketing, Sales, and Talent Recruiting. Beyond the internal site operations, Charlinda also manages Cisco’s community engagement strategy for Georgia- thereby positively impacting Cisco’s employee workforce and the community in which it serves.

Balancing the ability to work in and on the business, Charlinda has been with Cisco for 14 years delivering results in Sustainable Packaging for Supply Chain Operations, Software Quality, Process Improvement, Change Management, and Business Operations. Charlinda’s 20+ year career experience began as a Software Test & Integration Lead for VoIP devices and mobile networks in EMEA- previously working at Motorola and Nortel Networks. A Chicago native and engineer at heart, Charlinda has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.