WWT CEO Jim Kavanaugh dives deep with CRN on how Cisco is getting its ‘mojo back,’ if the AI bubble is real, how WWT drives customer AI deals and his big investments for 2026.
World Wide Technology CEO and IT legend Jim Kavanaugh says Cisco is getting its “mojo back” via a more open innovation strategy and new structural leadership.
“Cisco, I feel like they kind of lost their way for a little while and didn’t have their mojo. Now it feels like they’re gaining that mojo back,” said Kavanaugh, the longtime leader of the $20 billion company, which won Cisco’s 2025 Global Enterprise Partner of the Year award.
“A big part of it is structural and leadership,” WWT’s CEO said. “The other thing that is interesting for Cisco is they’re taking an approach of trying to be a more open platform, understanding that there’s going to be interoperability issues that are going to be required by clients.”
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WWT is one of the most innovative IT companies in the world as sales continue to surge in 2025. The St. Louis-based company ranks No. 9 on CRN’s 2025 Solution Provider 500 list, with Kavanaugh recently receiving CRN’s Best of the Channel Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Our growth has been really amazing. It’s over 40 percent growth in 2025. I don’t see any signs of it slowing down next year,” he said.
In an interview with CRN, Kavanaugh weighs in on networking leader Cisco, if the AI bubble is real, how WWT is winning AI customer deals and his company’s biggest investments for 2026.
“You will become obsolete in certain areas if you don’t lean in and figure out how to be a lifelong learner and a specific student of AI,” he said.
As one of Cisco’s biggest global partners, how do you feel about Cisco right now?
Cisco, I feel like they kind of lost their way for a little while and didn’t have their mojo. Now it feels like they’re gaining that mojo back.
They’re gaining their energy back. You can feel it in the Cisco leadership team. You can feel it in the culture and the people.
At the end of the day, you’ve got to be delivering on the products and the capability.
What led to Cisco getting its mojo back?
A big part of it is structural and leadership.
Cisco [President and Chief Product Officer] Jeetu Patel has a lot of energy and a lot of confidence in where Cisco is today and where they’re going.
He brought all the business units under him that really created synergies within the different business units where they weren’t building individual products that, at times, may compete or not integrate into the other products.
Therefore, creating a company of products and not a company of products and a platform.
That’s where customers are looking for organizations to help them eliminate the number of products that they’re working with. And help them understand how to leverage integrated platforms to accomplish a more aligned IT infrastructure capability.
That’s where Cisco is going today. Jeetu is looking at the individual business units that roll up into him, and then, how are they building an enterprise architecture and a platform that brings those together.
Is there anything else about Cisco in 2025 and beyond that has you excited?
The other thing that is interesting for Cisco is they’re taking an approach of trying to be a more open platform, understanding that there’s going to be interoperability issues that are going to be required by clients.
If you are building a platform and a capability that is only beneficial to your internal organization, it may not be the best thing for the customer.
If you looked at collaboration and thinking about how potentially, at times, that WebEx needs to connect with Teams or Zoom, and how those things need to be thought about from a customer perspective and not necessarily just the supplier perspective—they’re starting to take a more open approach to things that they’re building and doing, which is very beneficial to the customer.
So overall, I feel very good about Cisco’s position and where they’re going.
What is WWT’s approach to winning AI deals?
We try to lead by example. So internally is a methodology and approach we try to communicate to our clients, and that’s starting all the way with the CEOs—and could be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, all the way down to midmarket and SMB customers.
The first thing we believe is that this needs to be a CEO-led effort.
They need to communicate to their organization to make sure everyone understands that they need to be embracing AI and where that organization is going around AI. That learning process and understanding of how it’s going to be applied in your area is not only going to improve the efficiency, scale and innovation of that company, but the individuals.
You will become obsolete in certain areas if you don’t lean in and figure out how to be a lifelong learner and a specific student of AI—and that applies across everywhere.
How do you help WWT customers go from AI design to implementation and production?
We’re helping [customers] identify use cases in the specific areas and then prioritize those use cases and moving their team to advisers—like a WWT—to help them understand how you build an enterprise AI architecture. It’s going to align with those use cases that you’re building out.
As you build out the architecture, unify the data strategy, select which and how you’re building your structure so you don’t get locked in too much to any area. Because the different models continue to evolve and get better and better.
So how you write a headless front-end structure that allows you to write APIs into different data sources and different models, to build out your enterprise AI architecture. Then go fast, and building out your use cases is the methodology and approach that we’re using internally and that we’re advising our clients.
This is a long-term journey. It’s not a project.
As you build out that architecture and you align the technical capabilities that we’ll continue to iterate on—along with the line-of-business use cases—you will eventually start seeing a flywheel effect of AI capabilities.
Are customers getting it right?
Some organizations are doing better than others. Some are putting the right people in the right place and are starting to see these use cases come to light.
Other ones are dabbling more than making a serious commitment and aren’t necessarily seeing things.
At the end of the day, this is not just an easy flip of the switch to drive these outcomes because you really have to align it to your data, and you have to get your data right. You have to make sure that you’re doing it in a thoughtful and a governed way, and then your line of businesses are aligned.
But when you get it right, it’s going to drive game-changing differentiation—both on a efficiency basis and on innovation and differentiation of products and services that you’re going to deliver for your customers.
What is WWT’s vision and strategy for 2026?
I’m very, very bullish about next year. This year has been a great year for World Wide. Our growth has been really amazing.
It’s over 40 percent growth in 2025. I don’t see any signs of it slowing down next year.
There’s constant talk of this AI bubble.
My view on the bubble is that, as long as the largest of the large players don’t get too far out in front of them—eventually, you’re going to want to see profitable models coming out of the OpenAIs and the Anthropics—but the capabilities and the performance coming out of these large language models are getting better and better and better.
If you are building out this AI platform and journey inside your company, and you’re tapping tokens, which is the economic way to track it—those tokens are getting faster and better and more performant. The cost of them [is] going down exponentially.
So as you build out your flywheel or manufacturing process around AI use cases and capabilities, the performance of the models just gets better and better, and they get cheaper and cheaper.
As that comes out and you start to see organizations and enterprises—not just consumers—leveraging these models, we will see a flywheel effect of innovations and efficiencies that will take place.
What’s are some of WWT’s big investments in 2026?
We’re planning to partner in a more significant way with many of our strategic partners today.
Nvidia has just been a great partner that has quickly grown to a multibillion-dollar partner with us, with an incredible opportunity out in front of us. Looking at what we’re doing with Cisco, looking at what we’re doing with VMware, looking at the AWSes of the world is a big investment.
We’re being very, very conscious about making sure that we are investing in building out innovation and leveraging our Advanced Technology Center as an innovation ecosystem.
Also hiring and training, what we believe are the best people and talent—both on the business advisory standpoint, but deep technical experts—to help bring these things together and help customers sort out this barrage of technology innovation coming at them.
The last one is just never forgetting about the culture of the organization. Because that is the one thing—with all the innovation and the technology that’s coming at us—your people and culture with the right values is the one thing that should stand the test of time.