In this episode, Cisco’s Chief Strategy Officer Ammar Maraqa joins host Kaihan Krippendorff to discuss how one of the world’s largest technology companies is evolving its strategy to lead the next wave of AI and digital infrastructure.

From building AI-ready data centers to fostering intrapreneurship through Outshift, Cisco is reimagining how strategy, innovation, and execution come together. Ammar shares lessons from his experience leading Cisco’s strategy organization and shaping its innovation portfolio across build, buy, partner, and incubate pathways.

Topics Covered

• Cisco’s strategy for the AI and digital infrastructure era
• How the Strategy Office connects long-term vision with execution
• Building AI-ready data centers and enabling digital resilience
• The meaning of agentic AI and its impact on enterprise productivity
• How Cisco’s Outshift incubator drives internal innovation
• Cisco’s approach to build, buy, partner, and incubate innovation
• The difference between a “push” and “pull” model in corporate strategy teams
• Why resource allocation is the truest test of strategic clarity

Key Quotes

Resources Mentioned

• Cisco Outshift (https://outshift.cisco.com)
• Cisco’s Digital Resilience framework
• Outthinker Networks (https://outthinker.com)

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In this special in-person conversation recorded at Adobe’s global headquarters, Kaihan continues his discussion with Malte Bernholz, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Incubator at Adobe.

In Part One, on our sister show Outthinkers, Malte explored the macro trends transforming creativity, technology, and business in the age of AI. Click the link below to watch part 1 if you havent already. https://youtu.be/pYoIvvb0SGc

Now, in Part Two, we go deeper—inside Adobe’s strategic engine—to learn how this global innovator designs its own future.

Malte shares:

• How Adobe has reorganized around three audience groups—business professionals and consumers, creative professionals, and marketing professionals—to better align innovation with customer needs
• How his team leads corporate strategy and incubation, balancing “looking around the corner” with accelerating high-priority initiatives
• How the Adobe Incubator fosters entrepreneurship within the company, empowering small internal teams to build the next generation of product – and the early outcomes of that work, from Firefly Boards to Project Pulsar and beyond

Part one on OUTTHINKERS: https://youtu.be/pYoIvvb0SGc

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In today’s episode, we speak with Oreste Donzella, former Chief Strategy Officer of KLA, a global leader in semiconductor process control and inspection. Oreste brings over three decades of experience in the semiconductor industry — a sector that quietly powers every technological advance we see today.

You know, every strategist planning for AI's future is charting a course on assumptions about computational power, cost curves, and technological capability. But few are examining the foundation on which all of it rests: semiconductors. Without understanding where chip technology is headed—and the geopolitical forces reshaping its landscape—you're navigating without checking what lies beneath the waterline. Oreste is a veteran strategy officer with decades navigating the complex semiconductor stack, and here we explore the dynamics shaping foundational technologies—from manufacturing processes to geopolitical tensions—so you can better anticipate the forces that will enable or constrain your AI ambitions.

In this episode we get into:

• Why AI’s rise is really a story about semiconductors — and how the industry’s “emotional revenge” is unfolding.
• The hidden complexity of the semiconductor supply chain — and how a few specialized companies shape global innovation.
• How geopolitics, national strategies, and power consumption are redefining the industry’s future.
• The movement toward modular, heterogeneous chip design — and what it means for strategy leaders in every sector.
• Oreste’s model for the three timeless pillars of great strategy execution: Collaboration, Innovation, and Execution.

Oreste’s perspective reminds us that strategy doesn’t live in isolation — it operates often within vast, interconnected systems. And those able to think at the systems level, able to understand how they are evolving, will be the ones able to understand where value is truly pooling and therefore where to play.

• Learn more about Outthinker's community of chief strategy officers - https://outthinker.com/
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