John Chambers

John Chambers is the founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures. Chambers focuses on helping disruptive startups from around the world build and scale, while also promoting the broader development of startup nations and a startup world. He invests in companies across categories and geographies that are leading market transitions, such as ASAPP, Nile, ParkourSC, Pindrop, Privoro, Quantum Metric, SAFE Security, Together AI, and Uniphore. Chambers has also invested in companies that have gone public including, Bloom Energy, Rubrik, and Sprinklr, and marked key acquisitions in the industry, such as Dedrone, OpenGov, and Pensando. Out of 22 investments, JC2 Ventures has generated 9 unicorns and 1 decacorn.

Prior to founding JC2 Ventures in 2018, Chambers served as CEO, Chairman, and Executive Chairman at Cisco Systems. During his 25+ years at Cisco, he helped grow the company from 400 employees and $70 million when he joined in 1991, to 75,000 employees and $47 billion when he stepped down as CEO in 2015. With countless lessons learned during his tenure at Cisco and working with startups, Chambers wrote Connecting the Dots: Lessons for Leadership in a Startup World.

Chambers is the Chairman of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) and was also appointed Global Ambassador of the French Tech by President Emmanuel Macron of France. Chambers has received numerous awards for his leadership, including being named “CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive Magazine and number two “Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review.