Padmasree Warrior is the former CEO of NIO U.S. and former chief development officer and board member of NIO, a manufacturer of smart, electric and autonomous vehicles. In this role, she scaled the company from start-up to a successful IPO in three years.
Prior to NIO, Warrior served as the chief technology and strategy officer for Cisco until September 2015, charged with aligning the company's technology and business strategy to business results. She was in charge of corporate strategy, mergers, acquisitions, venture investments and strategic partnerships. Prior to that, she was the senior vice president and general manager for Cisco Enterprise segment and co-led Cisco's worldwide engineering organization.Before joining Cisco, she was executive vice president and chief technology officer at Motorola. Under her leadership, Motorola was awarded the 2004 U.S. National Medal of Technology.
Warrior has been widely recognized for her creative, visionary leadership. Forbes named her one of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" for three years running. In 2013 the International Alliance for Women gave her the World of Difference Award. In 2012, Business Insider called her one of the "25 Most Influential Women in Wireless." The Wall Street Journal has called her one of "50 Women to Watch." Fast Company included her among the "100 Most Creative People in Business." The Economic Times listed her as "the 11th Most Influential Global Indian."
Warrior has served on government initiatives and industry advisory boards, as well as charitable and community organizations. She received the United States Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce's Excellence Award and YWCA Metropolitan Chicago's Outstanding Woman of Achievement Award. In 2007 she was inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame.
Warrior serves on the boards of Microsoft and Spotify. She held previous board seats for NIO, Gap,Box and Cornell University.
She holds a bachelor of technology degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, India, and an MS degree in chemical engineering from Cornell University.