Cisco loses chief development officer and heir apparent Giancarlo

Charles Giancarlo, Cisco's chief development officer and characterized as CEO John Chambers's heir apparent, joined Silver Lake, the Silicon Valley private equity firm. Chambers was not happy to lose Giancarlo, who said that he wasn't keen on waiting another three to five years for the current CEO to hand over the reigns. The fourteen-year Cisco veteran joins another senior executive in exile, Mike Volpi, former senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Routing and Service Provider Technology Group who joined video startup Joost as its CEO.In the conference call Chambers said that he has a deep bench from which to groom his replacement. Nonetheless, Giancarlo has ridden with Chambers since he became Cisco's CEO in 1995, when the company had $1.2 billion in annual revenues, to its current $35 billion in revenues, with a market cap of $175 billion. His loss will mean some disruption for the company but nothing Chambers can't handle.

Cisco recently hired Padmasree Warrior as its new CTO, a position Giancarlo held up until 2005. Warrior spent 23 years at Motorola, including four as CTO, prior to joining Cisco.