About

Hari Katakam is a seasoned professional with 19+ years of hands-on experience in the networking industry, of which 16+ years have been spent at Cisco Systems. He is currently serving as a Sr. Manager at Cisco, where he has demonstrated technical and operational excellence in IT products, information security, IT services delivery, quality assurance, and program management. Hari is a recognized leader with expertise in developing top networking software QA organizations in dynamic engineering environments. He has built the QA group for the Cisco Catalyst 6500 and Nexus 7K, Cisco’s long-running multi-billion dollar flagship product, from inception to a highly effective global test organization. He has also innovated and established “best-practices” to maintain the highest levels of product quality, on-time delivery, and customer satisfaction. Hari has strong, dependable leadership skills in Cisco C2K/3K/4K and Cat6K, Nexus 7K Datacenter products, in all facets of quality assurance. He has 5+ years of experience in handling customer escalations (highest level of escalation) CAP cases and critical issues. He is experienced in integration/validation of complex distributed enterprise networking systems and solutions. In addition, he is skilled in effective project planning, staffing, resource allocation, execution, and follow-through to completion. Hari is an individual and group management/mentoring/coaching expert who maintains high-performance teams and retains top talent. He has 7+ years of successful collaboration with offshore engineering groups via active dotted-line management. He has a focused, analytical approach when managing through high-pressure customer and crisis situations. Hari holds a BE degree in Electronics from Bangalore University and has completed his schooling from St. Joseph's High School. He has a strong tech stack in QA, test, and integration. With 24.79 years of relevant experience, Hari is a leader and innovator who is committed to delivering results and achieving excellence in his work.