James Gemmell

James (Jim) Gemmell served as Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Akamai for seven years. In October 2019, after a successful 35-year career, Mr. Gemmell decided to retire. He expects to serve as an advisor to Akamai’s executive team throughout 2020.

Mr. Gemmell has more than 25 years of global HR experience within high-growth organizations attracting engineers and software developers.

Prior to Akamai, Mr. Gemmell served in a number of senior executive HR positions at Cisco Systems for 13 years. As Cisco's Chief Human Resources Officer, he was responsible for creating and implementing holistic and global people strategies, optimizing the talent portfolio, driving high levels of employee engagement and stewarding Cisco's culture.

His tenure at Cisco also included serving as Vice President, Human Resources, providing strategic and operational leadership in the areas of compensation, benefits, HR support for mergers and acquisitions and international assignments. He held HR leadership roles within the engineering and sales organizations, in corporate compensation, and in key geographic regions, including Cisco India.

Mr. Gemmell's career in HR includes positions at AlliedSignal, Mobil Oil Corporation and General Electric. He holds a BA in Economics from Union College and a Masters from Purdue University.