ciscoAuthority Intelligence
07Thought Leadership Maturity

Five tiers. One distribution problem.

Every Cisco Field CTO is classified into one of five maturity tiers based on their Authority Score™. The shape of the distribution is the finding: zero Category Leaders, one Authority Leader, and a heavy base of Contributors and Invisible Experts — Cisco's largest latent visibility asset.

T1
Score 81–100
Category Leader

Recognized market voice with significant reach, engagement, and influence.

External Benchmark (0 Cisco CTOs)
Ariel Cohen80.9
Cisco Share
0%
T2
Score 61–80
Authority Leader

Consistently influences conversations within their category.

Members (1)
Jason Maynard62.0
Cisco Share
6%
T3
Score 41–60
Emerging Voice

Building recognition and generating meaningful engagement.

Members (4)
Andy ThurAI50.2Keith O'Brien45.1Keith McClellan44.9Jan Heijdra41.6
Cisco Share
24%
T4
Score 21–40
Contributor

Participates in conversations but has limited influence.

Members (6)
Darren Lapierre37.4Craig Robin35.6Alim H. Ali33.9Hector M. Morales-Fajardo, PhD23.4Rose Skandari, Ph.D.23.3Duffie Cooley21.3
Cisco Share
35%
T5
Score 0–20
Invisible Expert

Deep expertise with limited market visibility.

Members (6)
Jason Shearer15.0Bogdan Muraru14.3Jatin Sachdeva13.8Robert Bouchard12.6Zachary Miller12.4Chris Olson12.0
Cisco Share
35%

The largest opportunity is not improving Jason. The largest opportunity is moving Invisible Experts into Contributor, and Contributors into Emerging Voice. Even modest activity increases would meaningfully expand Cisco's executive visibility footprint and close the gap to the Category Leader benchmark.