Speaker

Prat Bhatt

Prat is Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. He leads Cisco’s Controllership organization with global responsibility for accounting and reporting and financial controls covering all aspects of Cisco’s business. He has deep expertise in accounting & finance, risk management, operations, and financial data management & systems. Over his career at Cisco he has led a number of key financial and business critical initiatives.

 

His responsibilities include:

  • SEC and statutory reporting, policy & technical accounting, revenue recognition, and accounting for all businesses, geographies and functions including: mergers & acquisitions, supply chain, sales, leasing, real estate, treasury, etc.; 

  • Strategic development and continuous improvement for financial systems and processes; 

  • Leadership for Cisco’s one day close process; 

  • Sarbanes-Oxley program and global governance leadership for all financial controls and compliance; and 

  • Financial operations including worldwide support for Cisco Capital and financial shared services. 

 

Prat is a leader outside of Cisco with notable roles including: 

  • Serves on the Board of Directors of Seagate Technology and is a member of the Audit & Finance Committee; 

  • Past Chair of FEI’s Committee on Corporate Reporting (CCR); 

  • Past member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB SAG); 

  • Past member of the FASB’s Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council (FASAC); 

  • Past Chair of the Board of Financial Executives International (FEI); 

  • Past Chair of the Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF); 

  • Chair of the Audit Committee of the Cisco Systems Foundation; 

  • Regular guest speaker for the Stanford Graduate School of Business as well as other financial forums. 

 

Prior to joining Cisco, Prat was with Kaiser Permanente as the Director of Financial Operations and with Ernst & Young. He holds a graduate degree in accounting from the University of Southern California, a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is a licensed CPA (inactive).