Wim Elfrink, Cisco?s highest ranking executive located in India and one amongst the firm?s top leaders, is relocating back to the US next month amidst a huge restructuring drive that aims to put the company back on track. The $40 billion networking titan is battling weakness in some of its businesses and has said that it would cut $1 billion in expenses over the next fiscal year.

Wim Elfrink is the firm?s chief globalisation officer. He manages the company?s globalisation strategy out of the company?s Globalisation Centre East in Bangalore ? he moved to India in 2007 after Cisco felt that about 20% of its leadership team should be based out of emerging countries like India. Sources said that Elfrink is likely to continue as the chief globalisation officer even in the US. He was also the executive vice-president of Cisco Services ? a baton that has now passed on to COO Gary Moore.

Cisco provided no comments to a clarification sought by this newspaper, but a spokeswoman said that Elfrink?s transition cannot be related to the firm?s poor performance.

Cisco?s quarterly profit in the third quarter ended April dived 17.6% to $1.8 billion. The firm has now cut down on its ?internal councils?, which analysts said were slowing down decision making, as well as narrowed its business focus to Enterprise, Service provider and Emerging countries. Emerging countries will be led by Wim Elfrink and Edzard Overbeek, president, Cisco Asia Pacfic and Japan. In April, the firm said that it would close down its Flip camera business, part of its struggling Consumer group. While Cisco has provided no guidance as to how many positions would be eliminated because of the expense reduction drive, various industry watchers have pegged its between 4,000-5,000 globally. There will be eliminations in India as well, sources said. Cisco employs about 7,000 people in the country.

Elfrink became Cisco?s first chief globalisation officer in 2006. In this role, he is responsible for leading the firm?s efforts to become ?the world?s most globally relevant company by incubating new business models and partner ecosystems, growing in strategic markets, and transforming global operations?.

In 2010, Elfrink?s responsibilities were expanded to include co-leadership of Cisco?s market adjacency strategy with chairman and CEO John Chambers.