Chris Willetts, CEO at Block, outlines three important conversations from Cisco’s Partner Executive Exchange that could shape your infrastructure strategy.
I recently got back from a trip to Vienna, where Cisco hosted its 2026 Partner Executive Exchange, an invitation-only meet-up for Cisco partners to discuss big plans.
It’s a chance to hear directly from the Cisco leadership team about their priorities for the year ahead and what these could mean for your organisation.
Three main conversations stood out to me here: how AI is reshaping the security landscape, the value of integrated solutions for clients through One Cisco, and the importance of digital sovereignty in an increasingly unpredictable world. I’ve detailed what these topics mean for you below.
Chris with Gordon Thomson, President of Cisco EMEA, at the Cisco Partner Executive Exchange 2026.
1. Security and infrastructure are increasingly converging
Security was a huge focus throughout the Cisco Partner Executive Exchange. The time between vulnerabilities being disclosed and being actively exploited is continuing to shrink.
Now, your organisation simply has less time to identify risks, assess exposure, and respond before attackers move in.
That reality is changing how infrastructure decisions are made.
Traditionally, networking and security teams are treated as separate disciplines. However, Cisco is now working off the basis that every infrastructure decision carries direct security implications, and vice versa. Essentially, the two can no longer operate in parallel.
AI is the change-maker in this shift. It’s advancing the threat landscape which is pushing digital teams to double down on network security.
For digital leaders, this means you’ll likely see more activity from Cisco in the security space over the coming months, with product drops and updates usually announced in July. As a result, there may be times where you need to bring SecOps teams into conversations more often when you’re scoping out potential investments.
Lastly, you’ll see an emphasis on choosing Cisco partners that can prove their network security capabilities. (In fact, Block has just been audited and earned its Cisco Secure Networking Specialisation – the first to do so in the UK.)
2. Operational complexity is a universal challenge right now
Cisco is moving from a product focus to a platform focus. Essentially, they’re looking to support organisations in simplifying their estates by consolidating their capabilities into their new Cisco One platform. The hope is this will create greater visibility, better integration, and easier operations than what can be offered when you buy technology piecemeal.
This leaves Cisco-users with important questions: is your current estate in a position to begin consolidating? Do you have the right visibility over your current infrastructure to make that decision? Is this approach factored into your long term strategy? Are you hindered by legacy tech that makes this task near impossible?
If you’re hoping to follow Cisco’s approach, the first step can be working with a partner to conduct an assessment of your infrastructure and find a low-risk starting point.
3. Digital sovereignty is beginning to require more attention
AI was an unavoidable topic at Cisco’s event which isn’t really a surprise. But its constant presence has brought digital sovereignty to the fore.
This isn’t necessarily new, especially if you’re operating in a sector like healthcare. However, it’s now a conversation that no longer only carries importance in highly regulated industries.
So, digital sovereignty should now be viewed as part of resilience planning, not just compliance.
Here, you’ll need to consider who controls your data, where that data resides, what supply chain dependencies you have, and how you can set your data sovereignty up for optimum business continuity.
In response, Cisco has taken a heavy focus on developing data centre solutions. A decade ago, we all thought everything would move to cloud. That’s not so concrete now data consumption has increased. For some, cloud-first is still the right approach. For others, it’s a combination of cloud, on-prem infrastructure, and modern data centre solutions (which I’m sure we’ll see more of soon).
The key point is that infrastructure location and data ownership are becoming a strategic decision rather than just purely technical.
Building resilience for complex environments
The Cisco Partner Executive Exchange covered so much ground, and that’s a testament to the rate of change AI-driven technologies have brought about.
However, the strongest message from the trip was that we can’t view resilience as a standalone goal. Security, operational simplicity, and digital sovereignty are becoming increasingly interconnected. Of course, this will have a knock-on effect on infrastructure decisions.
How can you deploy new technology securely and manage it efficiently when AI is changing the goal posts?
This is where we’ll definitely see Cisco making moves over the next 12 months. And based on the conversations I had in Vienna, it’s where I expect many other organisations will be concentrated too.
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