Francine Katsoudas, Cisco

Francine Katsoudas is one of 13 people in the executive leadership team of Cisco Systems, one of six women at the top of this digital communications technology multinational.

Twenty-five years before she was executive vice-president and “chief people, policy and purpose officer”, however, she was a University of California, Berkeley political science graduate who found herself in the wrong room, accidentally interviewing for a tech support position.