Prat Bhatt

Current public company boards: RingCentral, Seagate Technology

Executive Experience: Prat is a Fortune 100 senior technology executive and a financial expert with deep experience in global operations, strategy, risk, and investor relations. He was the SVP and chief accounting officer at Cisco leading a global team of over 1,000, finance professionals covering all countries where Cisco operates.

In the over 20 years he was with Cisco, he led key finance initiatives including development of operational strategies, processes, and systems in support of Cisco’s digital and growth imperatives; capital allocation strategy; public debt offerings; tax strategy; deal structuring for complex offers, and sales arrangements, investment, and M&A transactions; along with pre- and post M&A strategy and integration. As a strategist, he led the development of Cisco’s finance transformation strategy and has been a leader driving operational design and execution for new product and service offerings for the global markets.

In the area of risk management, Prat led the strategy and execution of Cisco’s integrated risk and compliance program with accountability to the company’s compliance committee of which he is a member. He is responsible for leading the strategy and execution for Cisco’s financial systems in concert with the chief information officer and information security team to address issues such as cyber security and data protection. Prat is a regular attendee of Cisco’s audit committee and leads discussions on quarterly results, financial reporting, regulation, governance, and risk management.

Investor relations is a key component of Prat’s expertise as he interacted regularly with Cisco’s investors and analysts as part of the earnings release process and investor meetings. He met with investors quarterly for post-earnings callbacks with sell-side analysts and buy-side investors. He was responsible for strategy, messaging, and oversight of Cisco’s quarterly earnings release process.

Operationally, Prat led the development of the Cisco Virtual Close as well as forecast, budget, shared services, and performance management processes and has been recognized for best-in-class financial practices. He leads high performing teams driving best-in-class practices across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific and is highly proficient in addressing complex US and international financial matters.

Prat serves as member of the board of directors of Seagate Technology and is a member of the audit and finance committee and at RingCentral.

Prat is a respected and longstanding leader in the finance profession and influential in financial standard setting with several chair roles in national finance professional organizations such as the FEI committee on Corporate Reporting as well as in advisory committees to the FASB and PCAOB. He is a regular guest speaker at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and on current financial topics in various other forums.

Additional information: Prior to Cisco, Prat was a financial executive in a major national healthcare organization responsible for corporate financial planning and analysis, resource modeling and allocation, and performance improvement.

He also was with E&Y with a focus on financial audits and advisory services. He holds a graduate degree in accounting from the University of Southern California, an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and is a CPA.