Charles Carmel, head of the $2bn corporate venturing unit at US-listed computer equipment supplier Cisco Systems, has joined private equity firm Warburg Pincus as a partner.
Hilton Romanski, vice-president of service provider strategy and major partnerships at Cisco, has replaced Carmel in charge of Cisco’s 50-strong mergers and acquisition and corporate venturing group. (Picture: Hilton Romanski (left) and Charles Carmel of Cisco Systems. Photo by Hemant Mishra / Mint.)
Having previously worked at investment bank Goldman Sachs as an analyst, Carmel joined Cisco in September 2001 rising to become vice-president of corporate business development.
As well as agreeing more than 30 acquisitions, Carmel said he had led Cisco’s $2bn in corporate venturing deals "across many segments, stages and geographies, which have created strategic and financial returns for Cisco". Cisco has also been one of the most active indirect investors through being limited partners in third-party-managed venture capital funds, such as SAIF’s early funds in China, but has recently become more focussed on direct investments.
Carmel added that he has been an active participant on the board of directors for a number of portfolio companies, which Cisco has a strategy of trying to fully acquire apart from in markets where the government is trying to maintain a local industry when it will remain minority investors.
Romanski had worked with Carmel for 10 years as vice-president of global corporate development at Cisco Systems before moving to service provider strategy in September last year. To aid continuity in investing, Ned Hooper, senior vice-president at Cisco, is understood to be focussing more of his time on corporate development.