In Part 2 of our Cisco exec series from Cisco Live Melbourne 2025, we sat down with Julie Canepa—long-time Cisco IT leader and former CIO for Australia & New Zealand who later led digital transformation and CX programs across Asia Pacific, Japan & China—to unpack how AI strategy becomes real business impact.

We cover moving from pilots to scale, building guardrails that accelerate delivery, linking AI to customer-experience KPIs, and reskilling teams for “everyday AI.”

What you’ll learn:

• The scale playbook: ownership, controls, and value stories that land with the business.

• People–Process–Technology: raising AI fluency and reskilling at speed.

• Measuring what matters: tying AI to CX and board-level outcomes.

• “Everyday AI”: practical agent patterns beyond the demo stage.

Guest: Julie Canepa (Cisco ANZ CIO; APJC digital transformation/CX leader).

Series: Special Cisco Executive Interviews — Part 2 (recorded around Cisco Live Melbourne 2025).

During our time at Cisco Live Melbourne 2025, we sat down with Mary de Wysocki, Cisco’s first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer, to unpack how circular design, energy-efficient data centres, and value-chain transparency can power AI responsibly—without blowing the carbon budget.

Under Mary’s leadership, Cisco has now incorporated Circular Design Principles into 100% of new products and packaging (FY25 goal achieved)—a key milestone that turns sustainability into an innovation driver for the AI era.

🎧 In this episode:
• What “AI-ready” infrastructure means in practice (efficiency + resilience)
• Bringing engineers into the sustainability process so efficiency becomes innovation
• Circularity at scale across Cisco’s portfolio and supply chain
• Why these moves matter as AI demand surges post-Cisco Live Melbourne 2025

#CiscoLive #Melbourne #Cisco #Sustainability #ChiefSustainabilityOfficer #AI #DataCentres #CircularDesign #EnergyEfficiency #NetZero #ESG #TechForGood #WhatTheTechPodcast

In this season finale, we sit down with Christopher Simusokwe, a seasoned data leader with over two decades of experience building and leading data engineering teams across finance, telco, and mining.

Together, we explore how AI is reshaping the world of data engineering — from evolving roles and real-time architectures to what it really takes to future-proof your career as automation and AI become deeply embedded in data systems.

Chris shares practical insights from the trenches: how to balance depth vs breadth in your technical growth, build pipelines that serve both humans and machines, and transition from reactive “data janitors” to proactive data product owners.

Whether you’re a data engineer, AI professional, or simply curious about the future of modern data systems, this episode breaks down how automation, orchestration, and reasoning are redefining what it means to work with data.