Cliff Thomas is a managing director leading business development, route-to-market efforts, and sales in the Americas for the Cisco Smart+ Connected Communities (S+CC) initiative, focusing on intelligent urbanization. His global team is responsible for developing business strategies that create new routes to market through joint ventures, new revenue-share models, public-private partnerships, and business acceleration for Cisco clients, governments, and an ecosystem of partners. The approach leverages Cisco S+CC solutions, which include real estate, education, physical safety and security, health and wellness, transportation, residential, retail, hospitality, sports and entertainment, utilities, and government. Thomas has more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, including management consulting and a successful venture in technology services. With 18 years at Cisco in various sales, business development, and global leadership roles, he brings both breadth and depth to his integral role on the S+CC team—a team focused on entering and scaling new market opportunities. Thomas graduated from Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland, with a B.S. in electrical engineering and minor in economics. He also completed additional engineering thesis work on pneumatic wave energy conversion at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland with a focus on sustainability.