Nadella learnt technology at Microsoft, but leadership at school

Hyderabad boy tipped to lead global tech giant known for his humility

India-born Satya Nadella, who is tipped to be the next CEO of Microsoft, is not only a technology-wizard but also known to be a humble and down-to-earth person.

People who know him well both professionally and personally, say Nadella is a great team person, someone who embodies all the qualities that a leader would need to make a mark at the Redmond-headquartered global technology major.

Earlier today, two media reports said the 47-year old Nadella would replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft's CEO, citing sources familiar with the processes of selecting the new leader at the company. Ballmer is slated to retire by August 2014.

“Satya is extraordinarily humble and a very good human being; so almost anybody who knows him has nice things to say about him. That is in contrast to many leaders today who have 'sharp elbows’,” said Ravi Venkatesan, former chairman of Microsoft India.

Interestingly, in an earlier interview to an Indian publication, Nadella had given a simple yet outstanding example of the leadership lessons he first learnt while playing for his school cricket team. When the team captain found that Nadella was bowling quite ordinary, he himself stepped in to give the team the much-needed breakthrough, and again threw the ball back to Nadella to bowl the next over.

“I will never forget that. What made him do that? Is this what they call leadership? These are the kind of questions I have since reflected on as I approach many of the things I do today leading teams," Nadella had told in the interview.

Nadella, who attended Hyderabad Public School at Begumpet before getting an engineering degree in Electronics and Communication from Manipal Institute of Technology, worked at Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992. During these nearly 22-years, Nadella has held several positions, including senior VP of R&D for the online services division, and VP of Microsoft business division.

“He is one of the sharpest guys you will meet; he is very technical and very empathetic. He understands an exterior opinion which works in his favour as he is ready to learn from others,” said one of Nadella’s friends pleading anonymity.

“He has still got strong ties with India and makes at least two trips a year on work as well as to meet his parents.” Nadella’s father, a retired IAS officer, is presently based out of Hyderabad.

It is probably Nadella's performance at the company that led to him being appointed as the head of one of the most key segments of the company—cloud and enterprise. According to several sources, Nadella was responsible for bringing the company's database, Windows server and developer tools, to its Azure cloud. Under his leadership, Microsoft's cloud services' revenue rose to $20.3 billion in June 2013 from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011.

“He is an extremely well-rounded person; he has worked in the application business; he has worked in the Bing search business, led the server and tool business, and now he is in charge of all online and cloud engineering. More importantly, he is a strong technical person which is a good thing to lead a company like Microsoft,” added Venkatesan whose first engagement with Nadella happened when the latter was heading Microsoft Business Division.

Since its inception in 1975, Microsoft has so far seen only two iconic leaders—Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Nadella's appointment would be a testimony of India’s talents getting recogonised globally.

“Microsoft's offerings have touched an entire generation of Indians, and it would be a moment of great pride for us to see an Indian take over such a prestigious post,” said Ravi Gururaj, chairman of Indian IT industry body Nasscom's product council.

“I am sure it is his performance and delivery at the company that has brought him this far, and we wish him well.”
Microsoft is currently at a crucial point, as the company is moving away from its roots as a software-focused firm and moving towards hardware and internet-based services.