Nadella Named Microsoft CEO, Gates Steps Down as Chair

Written by Jessica Davis 1
February 4, 2014

Microsoft (MSFT) today named Satya Nadella as CEO and member of the board of directors effective immediately. Chairman Bill Gates will step down from his role heading the board and remain as a board member with the additional titles of founder and technology advisor, the company announced. John Thompson, the lead independent director for the Board of Directors, will take on the chairman job and remain an independent director on the board.

Nadella was one of the top internal candidates for the job of CEO at Microsoft, and most recently served as EVP of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. (More importantly, he was your favorite in our recent MSPmentor poll of Microsoft CEO candidates.)

“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” Gates said in a prepared statement. “Satya is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth.”

Nadella’s appointment follows a 6-month long CEO search following the surprise early retirement announcement from former CEO Steve Ballmer, in August 2013, soon after the company’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference in July. Ballmer was only Microsoft’s second CEO and presided over the company during a time of huge change for the industry as cloud computing and mobile phones and tablets rose to prominence among consumers and business users. Gates and Ballmer had been friends dating back to their college years.

Microsoft said in a statement that Nadella has spearheaded major strategy and technical shifts across the company’s portfolio of products and services since he joined in 1992, most notably the company’s move to the cloud and the development of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world supporting Bing, Xbox, Office and other services. During his tenure overseeing Microsoft’s Server and Tools Business, the division outperformed the market and took share from competitors, the company said.

“Microsoft is one of those rare companies to have truly revolutionized the world through technology, and I couldn’t be more honored to have been chosen to lead the company,” Nadella said. “The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but to seize it, we must focus clearly, move faster and continue to transform. A big part of my job is to accelerate our ability to bring innovative products to our customers more quickly.”

With the addition of Nadella, Microsoft’s board now consists of Ballmer; Dina Dublon, former CFO of JPMorgan Chase; Gates; Maria M. Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College; Stephen J. Luczo, chairman and CEO of Seagate Technology PLC; David F. Marquardt, general partner at August Capital; Nadella; Charles H. Noski, former Vice chairman of Bank of America Corp.; Helmut Panke, former chairman of management at BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG; and Thompson, CEO of Virtual Instruments. Seven of the 10 board members are independent of Microsoft, which is consistent with the requirement in the company’s governance guidelines that a substantial majority be independent.