Cisco Systems names Robbins as CEO

re-election to the post of executive chairman in December, the company said Monday, ending more than two decades of leadership at the networking company.

Chambers first joined the board in 1993. Robbins, who has been CEO since 2015, will assume that role.

The change gives Robbins more complete control to steer Cisco, the biggest maker of equipment that forms the backbone of the internet, away from its reliance on the high-priced hardware that provides most of its revenue.

Under Chambers, who served as CEO from 1995 until 2015, those products helped raise Cisco’s annual sales from $1.2 billion to nearly $50 billion. That surge stalled as the networking industry changed and Cisco hasn’t had a double-digit percentage year of revenue expansion — typical under Chambers’ early leadership — since 2010.

“They were doing great until the whole industry started to transition,” said David Heger, an analyst at Edward Jones. “Among hardware companies, they seem to be managing it well but it’s going to be multiple years.”

As CEO of Cisco, Chambers, 68, was one of the most prominent spokesmen for the boom that transformed the internet into a network that redefined how people work, communicate and get entertainment.

He charted the rise that briefly made Cisco the world’s most valuable company and later navigated it through the dot-com bust, the financial crisis and the advent of a fresh crop of competitors that are creating less expensive ways to design and manage computer networks.