2B Bolder Podcast : Career Insights & Advice from Successful Women in Business & Tech
The 2B Bolder Podcast ranks in the top 3% of 3.5 million podcasts globally (Listen Score). Host Mary Killelea, a former corporate B2B marketing strategist and founder of the 2B Bolder platform, sits down with bold and inspiring women in business and technology who have built powerful personal brands and thriving careers. Through honest conversations, guests share how they navigated challenges, found their voice, and stood out in competitive industries. From execs to entrepreneurs, engineers to marketers, you’ll hear firsthand how they turned ambition into action. If you're ready to elevate your career and personal brand, this is your front-row seat. Learn more at www.2BBolder.com.
2B Bolder Podcast : Career Insights & Advice from Successful Women in Business & Tech
#137 Cisco's EVP Liz Centoni Talks about Navigating AI and Leadership
Liz Centoni takes us on the extraordinary journey through her 25-year career at Cisco, where she's currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Customer Experience Officer, leading a global team of 21,000 employees. Rather than viewing her long tenure at one company as stagnation, Liz describes finding multiple "lily pads" across 13 different roles, allowing her to constantly reinvent herself while building diverse skills and leadership capabilities.
With refreshing candor, Liz addresses the challenges women in technology face, sharing personal experiences of having ideas ignored until repeated by male colleagues. "It took me a long time to realize that it was not about how I was saying it, it was who was hearing it," she reflects. This authenticity extends to her leadership approach, where building trust through consistent communication, clear priorities, and genuine empathy creates alignment across her organization.
As an executive at the forefront of technological innovation, Liz offers valuable insights into how AI is transforming customer experience. She distinguishes between traditional AI applications and newer agentic systems that can take autonomous action, creating opportunities to solve persistent customer problems at scale. Rather than viewing AI as a job replacement, Liz sees it as freeing teams from repetitive tasks to focus on more complex, creative problem-solving.
Perhaps most powerful is Liz's reflection on what it means "to be bolder," drawing from Viktor Frankl's philosophy that between stimulus and response lies a space where we choose our actions. For Liz, boldness means expanding that space, taking ownership of choices, and recognizing personal agency in every situation – a perspective that offers a powerful framework for approaching leadership challenges with authenticity and courage.
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