Emerging Cloud Models: Community Cloud

Manjula Talreja is a 25-year information technology (IT) industry veteran who has spent the majority of her career at Cisco, where her extensive experience in general management, business strategy consulting, and operations has helped guide teams through many crucial inflection points. Talreja is currently vice president of the Global Cloud Practice for Cisco Consulting Services, the company’s business and IT technology consulting arm. In this expanded role, Talreja is helping to shape and drive Cisco’s enterprise and service provider (SP) cloud strategy. Taking advantage of Cisco’s Internet of Everything (IoE) “network of networks” platform, the Global Cloud Practice is helping CIOs transform enterprise IT delivery models to IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) and supporting SPs in developing cloud market-entry and execution strategies. Most recently, Talreja was vice president of global cloud business development for Cisco, where she and her team created new, innovative cloud business models and partnerships with technology vendors, SPs, and systems integrators (SIs). In 2009, Talreja ran and launched the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition, a partnership between Cisco, EMC, and VMware created to accelerate customers’ abilities to increase business agility with data center virtualization and private cloud. From 2004–2007, she served as senior director of Customer Business Transformation with Cisco’s Voice Technology Group (VTG). Prior to Cisco, she spent five years with Hewlett Packard (HP) in its IT manufacturing organization, where she worked on global manufacturing systems in the United States, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Talreja is a highly sought-after industry thought leader and was recently named a CloudNOW “2013 Top Ten Women in Cloud.” She also made CableFAX Magazine’s list of the “Most Powerful Women in Cable 2012.” holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Delhi, and a bachelor’s degree in business with a major in information systems from Santa Clara University.