Former Cisco COO Maria Martinez Joins Alkira Advisory Board to Advance AI-Native Networking

Alkira has strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Maria N. Martinez to its advisory board, bringing decades of enterprise technology experience from her recent role as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Cisco Systems from 2021 to 2024. During her tenure at Cisco, Martinez oversaw global customer experience, supply chain, IT, security and trust organizations, having previously served as Chief Customer Experience Officer where she helped customers transform their businesses and realize value from Cisco's software, services, and subscription offerings.

Martinez's extensive background includes senior executive roles at leading technology companies including Salesforce, Microsoft, Motorola and AT&T's Bell Labs, providing her with comprehensive insight into enterprise technology transformation across multiple industry sectors. Her current board positions include McKesson, Tyson Foods, Bank of America, JumpCloud, and Fiddler AI, demonstrating her broad expertise in guiding technology companies through growth phases and market evolution.

Amir Khan, CEO and founder of Alkira, emphasized the strategic value of Martinez's appointment, stating that her deep operational expertise and leadership in scaling customer-centric innovation at some of the world's most respected technology companies make her an invaluable addition. Khan noted that her guidance will help Alkira continue to redefine how enterprises design, deploy, and operate their global networks in the AI era, particularly as organizations face increasing pressure to modernize their network infrastructure.

The appointment signals Alkira's continued investment in innovation and AI-driven networking, positioning the company to help enterprises modernize complex global infrastructure with greater agility, visibility, and security. This strategic move comes shortly after the company's September launch of new AI-native capabilities through its Network Infrastructure Assistant co-pilot and Model Context Protocol server, which enable enterprises to interact with and manage their networks using natural language commands.

Martinez highlighted the critical timing of her involvement with Alkira, noting that today's enterprises are being challenged to reimagine network foundations for speed, simplicity, security, and AI integration. She emphasized that Alkira's platform delivers an unrivaled solution by simplifying complex global networks and embedding AI-driven intelligence, enabling organizations to achieve agility, visibility, and security that legacy networks cannot match. Her perspective underscores the growing importance of AI-native networking solutions in an era where digital transformation and cloud adoption are accelerating across industries.

The addition of Martinez to Alkira's advisory board represents a significant validation of the company's Network Infrastructure as a Service approach, particularly as enterprises seek to replace traditional hardware-dependent networking with cloud-native solutions that can scale instantly without requiring new hardware deployment, software downloads, or architectural learning curves. More information about Alkira's platform is available at https://www.alkira.com.