PR Manager, Office of the CTO

The application window is expected to close on: 11/12/2026 Meet the Team Global Communications is a team of more than 150 best-in-class communications professionals. Our mission is to protect and improve Cisco's reputation through innovative and thought-provoking storytelling, execution excellence and transparency. The PR team is responsible for leading Cisco's corporate and technology PR programs, as well as crafting and delivering clear and compelling narratives that grab the attention of media and influencers. Your Impact As PR Manager for the Office of the CTO, you'll shape how the world understands Cisco's most forward-thinking innovation—from quantum computing breakthroughs to the emerging internet of agents. You'll operate at the intersection of cutting-edge research, open source strategy, and product innovation, telling stories about the hidden technologies and transformative shifts that define Cisco's future. This is a unique opportunity to be a strategic storyteller and discovery engine, uncovering and amplifying narratives that position Cisco as an innovation leader while working collaboratively across research, product, and communications teams. In this hybrid role, you'll split time between external visibility for Outshift (our incubation engine for emerging technologies) and broader strategic storytelling around other innovative technologies. You'll translate complex, nascent innovations into clear, compelling narratives for enterprise leaders, industry influencers, and developer communities. You'll serve as a thought partner to research and product teams, helping them recognize storytelling opportunities early, refine positioning, and navigate the ambiguity of innovation storytelling. You'll move with startup agility, dig into technical depth, and build the media relationships and narrative frameworks that give Cisco outsized mindshare in categories not yet fully defined. Key Responsibilities • Strategic Storytelling & Discovery: Serve as a discovery engine for emerging narratives around Cisco's research innovations, open source contributions, and platform strategy—identifying white-space storytelling opportunities and translating complex technical breakthroughs into clear, audience-relevant narratives. Work deeply with research teams to uncover stories early, refine positioning based on market signals, and connect innovation work to broader business strategy. • Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Management: Partner with research, product, product marketing, and communications teams to align on narrative direction and ensure storytelling opportunities are identified and elevated early. Provide strategic counsel and clarity to technical teams on messaging and positioning, managing stakeholder expectations across matrixed environments. • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Build strong partnerships with Cisco communications teams, bridging the gap in our storytelling between Cisco’s products today and innovations that will unlock future opportunities for our customers. Partner with global communications teams to amplify our work in region. • Media Relations: Proactively build and nurture relationships with top-tier business, technology, trade and new media covering AI, quantum, distributed systems, developer topics and emerging infrastructure. Pitch stories with conviction, secure high-impact coverage, and drive message pull-through. • Campaign Management: Own end-to-end campaign execution for launches and strategic initiatives—from strategy through measurement. Manage timelines, agency relationships, and multi-channel delivery, leveraging AI tools and automation to accelerate workflows without sacrificing editorial rigor. Lead coordination with other communications functions, including analyst relations, employees communications and digital communications. • Strategic Counsel: Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to product, product marketing, and executive leadership. Bring external market perspective (competitive moves, media sentiment, industry trends) to internal decision-making. Minimum Qualifications • 7+ years of experience in public relations, communications, or marketing (with at least 3 years in a PR or external communications role). • Domain expertise in enterprise B2B technologies—particularly experience covering or communicating about networking, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, open source, emerging compute, or AI. • Proven ability to synthesize complex technical information and translate it into clear, compelling narratives for diverse audiences (practitioners, C-suite, investors, media). • Track record of building relationships with media, analysts, and influencers; demonstrated ability to secure coverage in relevant publications. • Comfort with ambiguity and emerging technologies—ability to operate in spaces where categories are nascent, positioning is in flux, and narratives are still forming. • Strong cross-functional collaboration skills—proven ability to work effectively with product, research, and technical teams; skilled at managing up, across, and down in matrixed environments. • Self-starter mentality—bias toward discovery and action; ability to identify storytelling opportunities and refine narrative direction with minimal direction. • Comfortable engaging with researchers, engineers, and product teams on technical depth while translating for external audiences. • Strong writing and editorial judgment—ability to craft sharp, clear narratives and refine positioning based on market feedback. Preferred Qualifications • Background at a tech company, or research-focused organization—where you've navigated rapid pivots, worn multiple hats, and moved fast with incomplete information. • Experience in quantum computing, AI research, or infrastructure innovation—or demonstrated hunger to learn and build expertise in these spaces. • Experience in communications roles with open source strategy and/or developer communities. •