Poly Adds Collaboration Veteran Carl Wiese to Its Ranks

by Jim Lundy

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Poly CEO Joe Burton continues to add executives who formerly worked with him at Cisco. Last week he announced Cisco veteran Carl Wiese as executive vice president, chief revenue officer, and global head of sales. This blog discusses the recent additions to the Poly team and why this bodes well for Poly.

Cisco Veteran Carl Wiese Joins Poly

It could be called a reunion but it is indicative of the mission of Poly CEO Joe Burton to add world class talent to his executive team. He gets that with Carl Wiese, who was most recently at Blackberry. I’ve known Carl for many years, in part because of his sales leadership role at Cisco where he ran all of collaboration sales. We expect big things from Carl and he joins Poly at a time of renewed product innovation. Carl is part of the growing Poly story that Joe Burton is architecting.

The Joe Burton Story Started in 2016

Poly has been through a lot over the last few years. Formerly called Polycom, the company has seen tremendous transformation under Burton, who has remodeled its structure and demonstrated impressive Polycom leadership. After a private equity buyout, then the acquisition by Plantronics, and then the rebrand to Poly, the face of the company has changed. And Joe Burton, who was named as Plantronics CEO in 2016, has been the architect of the new Poly mission.  Joe is a Cisco veteran and one of the moves he started last year was to bring in some of the powerful executives he worked with at Cisco. Besides Cisco, Joe has been able to retain some talented people from both Plantronics and also from Polycom—including Poly’s CMO Amy Barzdukas.

The Cisco Network Runs Deep at Poly

Carl joins a team that is steeped with former colleagues at Cisco. Tom Puorro, Poly’s EVP and Head of Product, joined Poly in 2018 after a long stint at Cisco. Tom helped to unveil the new Poly Studio Series launch last fall (see Aragon Blog: Poly Re-establishes Leadership with Studio X Launch). There are also many other former Cisco Execs at Poly—including one of Carl’s former Sales Leaders at Cisco, Jedd Williams, who joined Poly in 2019. These executives are part of a growing army of people we expect to join Poly, due to the loyalty these executives built over many years with their staff at Cisco.

Bottom Line: Poly Gets Ready to Rumble

It is clear that Poly is ready to take on all comers in 2020. The demand for web and video conferencing continues to grow and this bodes well for Poly as well as the other providers in this growing market. With battle tested Chief Revenue Officer Carl Wiese in place and with a refreshed product line from Tom Puorro, the future looks bright for Poly and provides a striking example of collaboration in the workplace.