NDA’s podcast series, Masters of Media talks to heads of media at brands to understand how advertisers are able to keep pace with the frenetic speed of development of media and its fragmentation across channels. In this episode we meet Teja Patel, Senior Director, Global Digital Media at Cisco.

Teja Patel is a true digital veteran and is now bringing her years of experience to help the IT giant's own digital transformation to, in the words of COO Maria Martinez, Chief Operating Officer, "evolve to deliver complete as-a-service solutions for our customers to power the next digital transformation."

The wide-ranging discussion covers areas including the benefits and perils of AI in marketing, the changing role of agencies,  the importance of communities to Cisco and the central role she sees Reddit playing in its interactions with its customers. 

"We have more than one million members of the Cisco community online and there’s a huge amount of peer-to-peer support. Community is hugely important to us. Over the next few years my vision is that a buyer shouldn’t have to leave the  platform they’re on to be able to find all they need." 

On media fragmentation: "I’ve seen so few example where companies have delivered a clear, seamless experience from touchpoint tp touchpoint for the end consumer. We’re not there yet and are on that journey now. It’s about educating internal stakeholders on the importance of that seamless consumer experience."