Business Roundtable

It being earnings season, CNBC has been interviewing top CEOS on their companies' results. The discussions have also turned to Europe's financial crisis, as CEOs analyze the EU's troubles.

John Chambers, Cisco (video, story):

If you look at what is occurring on a global basis, most of our geographies had good balance across the quarterm especially in enterprise, especially in commercial, and in surge provider. Europe, I'm a little more optimistic. We were just over at the World Economic Forum, Maria, and I felt pretty good until I listened to that session there. But I think there's a little bit more balance in Europe than people might realize, especially Northern Europe versus Central versus Southern Europe. Southern Europe is as tough as you hear.

Chris Viehbacher, Sanofi Aventis, responding to a question about the impact of the financial crisis on Europe's economy (video):

I do have some concerns. I do believe very passionately in Europe and the Euro, and I do believe that people underestimate Europe’s ability to get through things. I do worry about the banking sector. There are signs of capital flows freezing up, and obviously if that occurs, it’s going have a severe impact on economic growth. I think the risk of a major economic downturn is not negligible.

Emerging markets are proving a real growth area for pharmaceutical companies, Viehbacher noted. (He also spoke to Bloomberg TV.)

More CEO interviews...

• Indra Nooyi, chairman and CEO of PepsiCo (See also Bloomberg TV interview.)
• Larry Merlo, president and CEO, CVS/Caremark

And at 2:05 p.m. today, Thomas A. “Tom” Fanning, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Southern Company, will be interviewed on CNBC. We anticipate big news on the nuclear front.

Bloomberg, by the way, packages all its CEO interviews on a single webpage, CEO Spotlight. We appreciate that.