Cisco Security Chief Strategy Officer Dug Song left the company earlier this month. He co-founded zero-trust company Duo Security in 2010, which Cisco acquired in 2018 for $2.35 billion.

As Duo Security’s chairman and CEO, Song joined Cisco’s Networking and Security business as GM of zero trust and Duo Security following the acquisition. According to Song’s LinkedIn page, he took the role of Cisco Security chief strategy officer in early 2021.

A Cisco spokesperson confirmed to SDxCentral that Song “has taken a leave of absence from Cisco to generously dedicate his time to philanthropic efforts, like The Song Foundation.”

“We thank him for his leadership and his many contributions to the team, our customers, and partners,” the spokesperson said, adding that Song’s responsibilities as chief strategy officer have been transitioned to Cisco Secure’s leadership team.

Song told Crain's Detroit Business in an interview that he felt it was time to move on and left Cisco earlier this fall. Song also reiterated that the Duo Security team is “in good-shape hands.”

Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Duo Security uses cloud-delivered two-factor authentication to verify the identity of users before giving them access to corporate applications and resources, while inspecting in real-time all devices being used to access these corporate assets.

Prior to joining Cisco, the zero-trust startup raised $121.5 million in six funding rounds. It had 12,000 customers and more than 700 employees, Song wrote in a blog post. Customers included Facebook (Meta), Toyota, Yelp, and Zillow.

Cisco’s $2.35 billion deal was the largest amount paid for a private software company at the time and Duo Security continued growing, hitting more than $500 million in annual recurring revenue as Cisco’s fastest-growing business, Song noted.

Song's departure comes on the heels of two other former Cisco executives having found their next passion play.

Former Cisco CEO and Executive Chairman John Chambers and former Cisco EVP and Chief Development Officer Pankaj Patel recently co-founded startup Nile, aiming to redesign the network and remove human dependence by offering “new age” network-as-a-service (NaaS) and adopting “out-of-box” automatic zero-trust security. The vendor claims the model is similar to what the cloud did to computing and storage.