"You're going to see me move our players around to get more responsibility," Chambers told Bloomberg. ''We've started that and you'll see us increase that overall. I can no longer bring up my leaders in silos."

Chambers, 63, has been CEO at Cisco since 1995. During that time Cisco grew from a $2 billion company to a $46 billion behemoth and one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Chambers told Bloomberg that culture and salary have helped the company retain executives even as competitors try to lure them away with compensation as high as five times what they get at Cisco. Nonetheless, some high-profile executives have departed recently following a tumultuous year or so in which Cisco restructured management and operations, and cut back or cut loose disappointing product lines.

Among those departing over the past year include Chief Strategy Officer ; Paul Mountford, senior vice president of global enterprise sales; , who had been Cisco's Global Policy and Government Affairs head; and Amanda Jobbins, vice president of global partner marketing.

Chambers' reluctance to relinquish the top job was said to have hastened the departures of heirs apparent and several years back as well.