#137 Cisco's EVP Liz Centoni Talks about Navigating AI and Leadership

Liz Centoni takes us on the extraordinary journey through her 25-year career at Cisco, where she's currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer, leading a global team of 21,000 employees. Rather than viewing her long tenure at one company as stagnation, Liz describes finding multiple "lily pads" across 13 different roles, allowing her to constantly reinvent herself while building diverse skills and leadership capabilities.With refreshing candor, Liz addresses the challenges women in technology face, sharing personal experiences of having ideas ignored until repeated by male colleagues. "It took me a long time to realize that it was not about how I was saying it, it was who was hearing it," she reflects. This authenticity extends to her leadership approach, where building trust through consistent communication, clear priorities, and genuine empathy creates alignment across her organization.As an executive at the forefront of technological innovation, Liz offers valuable insights into how AI is transforming customer experience. She distinguishes between traditional AI applications and newer agentic systems that can take autonomous action, creating opportunities to solve persistent customer problems at scale. Rather than viewing AI as a job replacement, Liz sees it as freeing teams from repetitive tasks to focus on more complex, creative problem-solving.Perhaps most powerful is Liz's reflection on what it means "to be bolder," drawing from Viktor Frankl's philosophy that between stimulus and response lies a space where we choose our actions. For Liz, boldness means expanding that space, taking ownership of choices, and recognizing personal agency in every situation – a perspective that offers a powerful framework for approaching leadership challenges with authenticity and courage.Ready to transform your approach to career development and leadership?Tune in now here or on your favorite streaming channels.Subscribe to the To Be Bolder podcast for more conversations with inspiring leaders who are breaking barriers and creating meaningful change.See the full library of Women in Business and Tech Career podcastsLiz Centoni's Career Tips for Women TranscriptThe 2B Bolder Podcast provides first-hand access to some amazing women. Guests will include women from leading enterprise companies to startups, women execs, coders, account execs, engineers, doctors, and innovators.