Cisco’s chief will terminate a meeting if you use certain acronyms in his presence—he says new hires ‘feel too stupid to ask’ what they mean

Résumé détaillé

Like Jamie Dimon and Jeff Bezos, Cisco’s president Jeetu Patel, has strict rules for meetings: No unclear acronyms—and new hires can stop the meeting

So you’ve heard of KPI, ROI and EBITDA. But use the wrong acronym in front of Cisco’s president and your meeting could be killed—especially if it’s one that nobody outside the building understands.

“I don’t like acronyms, especially Cisco-manufactured acronyms that happen at runtime,” Cisco’s president and chief product officer Jeetu Patel told Fortune at a small roundtable dinner.

“If there’s a meeting and there’s acronyms that are used, there are times that I’ve just terminated the meeting.”

Patel jokingly pointed to a time he noticed staff saying “you have to get JP to approve”—without knowing they were referring to him. “I’m like, who’s JP? He’s like, that’s Jeetu Patel. I don’t even go by JP.”

But his distaste for needlessly shortening phrases and long sentences goes beyond giving bosses nicknames. He sees it as a real barrier to who feels able to speak up in a meeting.

“I actually think that using acronyms that are not industry standard is a very non-inclusive thing to do,” the Fortune 500 boss added.

Patel’s view of abbreviations and in-house acronyms comes down to simple maths.

Imagine if every year around 10% of workers leave the business. (The average attrition rate for U.S. workers between 2024 and 2025 was even higher at 13%.) By Patel’s estimate, 5% to 10% attrition at Cisco’s scale would mean about 9,000 new people a year—or 27,000 in three years. He said that would add up to a third of its entire workforce.

And all of them will have to learn the company-specific terms tossed around casually in meetings. Or, just nod along and pretend to understand them. Most people, Patel suggested, do the latter.

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