For Hooper, who was already waist-deep in corporate strategy at Cisco as senior vice president corporate development and head of its consumer division, this is quite a promotion, one that clearly suggests he’s being groomed for the CEO spot. And with former CEO candidates Charlie Giancarlo and Mike Volpi out of the picture, what’s to stop him from ascending to it? As Barclays Capital noted this morning, “The appointment cements our view that Mr. Hooper is well-regarded within Cisco and may continue to progress in the upper echelons of Cisco’s management team.”

Indeed. Try as it might to paint a happy face on Giancarlo’s departure (the title of the press release announcing the resignation: ‘Cisco Evolves Senior Technology Leadership Team’), it is a major blow for Cisco–especially after Mike Volpi, another CEO candidate, left for online video company Joost last February.

“Charlie is too good for Cisco to lose,” Prudential analyst Inder Singh told the FT. “He has touched on or operated many different parts of their business. This will be fairly difficult for Cisco to explain and it will be difficult to replace him. They have a lot of people that probably will be groomed for the CEO position, but it’s not clear to me if there is anyone ready now. They’re all future prospects. You want to replace John Chambers with a John Chambers. It’s not clear that there’s anyone quite ready to take on that mantle.”