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Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) was a company we have had some thoughts that a CEO change might be in order. If Chairman and CEO John Chambers was accurate in the past couple of weeks, a CEO succession may be as long as two to four years away. Now comes word that the networking equipment giant has announced an “evolution of its organizational structure and executive leadership team.”

Chambers warned of this recently that officers would be required to handle more duties, and Cisco says that the move will “position the company for future growth and enable it to more quickly capture market transitions and deliver innovative solutions to its customers.” It claims to be moving its organization structure and leadership team for “speed, agility, alignment and growth.”

Gary Moore, will be President and Chief Operating Officer, accountable for end-to-end operations and will continue to drive alignment across all parts of the company. Moore is also “responsible for Cisco’s operations, services, IT, supply chain, marketing and communications, human resources, corporate affairs, transformation office, legal, government affairs, and corporate planning functions.”

Rob Lloyd, President, Development and Sales, will assume responsibility for development and sales efforts and will move for greater speed-to-market. Lloyd will have these three reporting to him below (Patel, Elfrink and Robbins):

Pankaj Patel, EVP and chief development officer, will continue to lead Cisco’s development organization.

Chuck Robbins, who previously ran the Americas sales region, will immediately assume Lloyd’s prior role as the head of worldwide sales.

Wim Elfrink, EVP and chief globalization officer, is said to be continuing his focus on emerging solutions and the development of new markets, and will integrate his organization into the development and sales organization.  will report to Lloyd.

The remainder of Cisco’s executive leadership team remains unchanged.

John Chambers recently put a CEO change off into the future, but he did go on to say that he would hope to remain on as Chairman if the company wanted him to remain in that capacity. When we see moves like this, we wonder if the time frame that Chambers gave is coming up sooner rather than later.

JON C. OGG