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Karl Meulema Biography
Karl Meulema is Vice President, Customer Advocacy, Services Marketing and Channels for Cisco Systems, the worldwide leader of networking for the Internet. In his role, Meulema is responsible for creating and managing global service offerings that accelerate time to profitability and differentiation for partners and end customers.
Meulema joined Cisco in June 2000 as Director of Customer Advocacy Marketing for Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), where he played a pivotal role in the development and execution of a partner-focused services strategy that included the launch of the first partner-enabled advanced services offering for the region.
Meulema relocated to the United States in July 2001 to lead Worldwide Enterprise/Commercial Marketing for Customer Advocacy. In May 2002, he assumed increased responsibility for Worldwide Customer Advocacy Channel Sales and Marketing. Meulema and his team, in cooperation with Customer Advocacy’s Marketing team, reshaped the partner program landscape for technical support services, reaching new levels in the balance between partner and Cisco branded services, while increasing profitability and customer satisfaction for both the partner and Cisco.
Together with Customer Advocacy Marketing, the Customer Advocacy Channel team introduced the advanced partner enablement services, aimed at improving the partners’ time to profitability on emerging technologies and accelerating new technology adoption. Meulema and his team created the Partner Business Consulting process, using targeted business consulting with partners to enhance partner performance in customer satisfaction, revenue, and profit.
In March 2004, Meulema’s role within Customer Advocacy was expanded to VP Services Marketing and Channels, aligning all of the group’s marketing functions under his leadership.
Prior to joining Cisco, Meulema spent 13 years performing a variety of corporate strategy, professional services, and field sales positions for Hewlett-Packard.
Meulema holds a master’s degree in business administration from Nijenrode University in the Netherlands and a bachelor’s degree in process control systems from The Hague University as well as a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Rotterdam University. He resides in California with his wife and one of his three children.