Maria leads Cisco’s global Inclusion and Collaboration strategic initiatives and employee community strategy, which are designed to fuel exponential growth for the company’s employees, customers and partners. Leveraging Cisco’s collaborative technology, her team creates business-relevant strategies and value-creation programs that support Cisco’s robust employee communities. Her team drives broad adoption and integration of inclusive behaviors, and works with executives to instill accountability and change.In her role as Director, Maria has expanded Cisco’s Inclusion & Collaboration Community to over 30,000 members – or approximately 40% of Cisco’s global workforce. She led the development of a digitized platform for managing the community, allowing for real-time membership and ROI tracking. She has also expanded the impact of employee development opportunities by hosting HiTec’s annual conference on the Cisco campus this year, and streaming the company’s global Women of Impact conference to share the experience with all employees, customers and partners. She has also piloted Cisco’s first-ever investment circles, creating a revenue stream for strategic partnerships while also implementing a new assessment strategy that aligns to Cisco’s business outcomes.Maria is regularly invited to speak at public inclusion and diversity events and was recognized as a Silicon Valley 40 under 40 in 2016. She hosted this year’s Cisco Innovation Challenge finals, having been a past winner for the company’s LifeChanger initiative that utilizes Cisco technology to accommodate disabled workers. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from San Jose State, a Masters of Arts in Organizational Development from Sonoma State University, and an MBA from California State University Sacramento.