Cisco Systems Appoints Director of Channels for Asia Pacific

SINGAPORE - Cisco Systems appointed Mike Allen as director for channels in Asia Pacific. Reporting to Keith Goodwin, senior vice president for the worldwide channels organization in Cisco, Allen will drive the strategy and development of the more than 6,000 Cisco channel partners in the Asia Pacific region.

Allen replaces Janice Hulse, who moves to a new role in Cisco's regional operations as senior director for global account management.

Allen was previously the head of advanced technology and operations for an area that covered 11 states in United States and Canada. He joined Cisco seven years ago when Cisco acquired Fibex Systems. Allen has 16 years of experience in the technology industry. He covered the Asian region for a company called Broadband Technologies and also worked in the Asian semiconductor division of NEC. He will be based in Singapore with his wife and two children.

Cisco enhanced its Channel Partner Program in March of this year, to align with changing customer requirements and market growth opportunities. The enhanced Cisco Channel Partner Program assists and rewards partners who develop the technology breadth to deploy broad, integrated network solutions and the technology depth to deploy advanced security services, unified communications applications, and other specialized solutions.

The program also incorporates the Cisco Lifecycle Services approach to help partners deploy, operate, and optimize Cisco solutions.