The opportunity
Cisco is seeking an Industry Specialist for Defense to lead the EMEA vertical strategy and connect Cisco’s Industrial IoT capabilities with the secure, resilient, and mission-critical requirements of defense organizations.
The ideal candidate is a military veteran with practical experience in field digital communications, operational networks, or signals. Candidates with equivalent experience in defense, national security, public safety, or another mission-critical environment are also encouraged to apply.
This role combines defense-domain authority, business development, thought leadership, customer engagement, and strategic sales acceleration. The specialist carries a dedicated EMEA quota, while working across the wider defense market to build future pipeline and strengthen Cisco’s industry position.
What you will do
● Develop and execute the EMEA IIoT Defense Vertical Growth Plan, maintaining a clear view of market priorities, Focus Account performance, pipeline health, and growth opportunities.
● Create and incubate pipeline through customer relationships, defense communities, professional networks, industry events, and ecosystem partners.
● Accelerate strategic accounts through defense-specific discovery, executive engagement, competitive positioning, and opportunities for expansion across locations and architectures.
● Develop repeatable defense use cases, value propositions, discovery guidance, customer references, and solution blueprints with Cisco engineering teams.
● Enable Cisco account teams, sales specialists, engineers, and strategic partners to identify and pursue relevant defense opportunities.
● Represent Cisco at selected defense and industrial technology events, forums, and executive briefings.
● Build relationships across defense organizations, prime contractors, System Integrators, technology innovators, and relevant public-sector teams.
● Translate customer, competitive, and market insight into recommendations for Cisco’s go-to-market strategy, portfolio, engineering, and marketing teams.
● Consolidate win/loss lessons and use them to continuously improve Cisco’s defense positioning.
What you bring
● Significant experience in defense, national security, public safety, critical infrastructure, or another mission-critical operational environment.
● Practical experience with field digital communications, signals, resilient connectivity, or operational networks.
● Understanding of how communications capabilities are planned, deployed, operated, sustained, and modernized in demanding environments.
● Knowledge of the defense ecosystem, including government organizations, prime contractors, System Integrators, and specialist technology providers.
● Experience engaging senior operational, technology, engineering, program, or transformation stakeholders.
● Ability to translate operational requirements into clear business outcomes and relevant technology propositions.
● Strong business-development, relationship-building, presentation, facilitation, and executive communication skills.
● Ability to influence complex, multi-stakeholder programs across countries and organizational boundaries.
● Professional fluency in English; additional EMEA languages are advantageous.
● Willingness to travel regularly across EMEA.
● Ability to meet applicable customer-access, security-vetting, export-control, and compliance requirements.
Preferred background
● Previous service in the armed forces, ideally in signals, communications, operational networks, information systems, or a related function.
● First-hand experience supporting secure communications in deployed, mobile, remote, or infrastructure-constrained environments.
● Experience with ruggedized networking, wireless connectivity, edge environments, industrial infrastructure, or OT security.
● Established credibility within relevant defense communities or professional networks.
● Experience working with defense contractors, System Integrators, public-sector organizations, or strategic technology partners.
● Relevant military, engineering, communications, technology, or business qualifications.
Prior military service is highly valued but is not the only route to qualification. Comparable mission-critical operational and communications experience will also be considered.
What success looks like
● Achievement of the assigned EMEA Defense quota.
● A healthy vertical pipeline.
● Strong senior relationships and multi-year transformation plans in key accounts.
● Specialist-originated opportunities that progress into disciplined commercial execution.
● Strategic defense engagements converted into qualified initiatives and account expansion.
● Reusable defense plays, customer references, and solution blueprints adopted across EMEA.
● Stronger Cisco credibility and influence within the defense ecosystem.
● Effective collaboration with Cisco account, Regional, Transformation, engineering, and public-sector teams.
● Actionable win/loss, competitive, portfolio, and market insight.
Why Cisco?
At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint.
Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere.
We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.