Erika Franco is a seasoned technical leader with over 15 years of experience in networking and 7 years in industrial automation. As a Technical Leader at Cisco in the IoT Solutions group, she specializes in designing and validating end-to-end architectures for manufacturing, ensuring secure, reliable, and scalable implementations. Erika has been a key contributor to the Cisco and Rockwell Automation Converged Plant-wide Ethernet (CPwE) design guides and collaborates closely with leading automation partners such as Rockwell Automation and Schneider Electric. Previously, she represented Cisco in the ODVA Conformance interest group. Certified as a Profinet network engineer, her areas of expertise include cybersecurity for industrial solutions, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and Cisco TrustSec. Erika’s work is instrumental in driving the convergence of IT and OT within the industrial sector.