Satya Nadella named CEO of Microsoft

Gates becomes technology advisor; John W Thompson to be chairman

Microsoft on Tuesday announced Satya Nadella was going to be its next leader, betting on a long-time engineering executive to help the company keep better pace with changes in technology.

The expected selection of Nadella to replace Steve Ballmer was accompanied by news that founder Bill Gates had stepped down from his role as chairman and become technology advisor to Nadella.

John W Thompson, 64, a member of the Microsoft board who oversaw its search for a new CEO, became the company's chairman, replacing Gates.

"During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella," said Gates, who remains a member of Microsoft's board. "Satya is a proven leader, with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together."

‘I want Microsoft to be a do-more firm’

Highlights of Nadella’s letter to employees

• Our job is to ensure Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world
• Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation
• We need to believe in the impossible and remove the improbable

In a statement, Nadella said: "Microsoft is one of those rare companies to have truly revolutionised the world through technology, and I couldn't be more honoured to have been chosen to lead the company."

 

In Nadella, Microsoft's directors selected both a company insider and an engineer, suggesting they viewed technical skill and intimacy with Microsoft's sprawling businesses as critical for its next leader. It has often been noted that Microsoft was more successful under the leadership of Gates, a programmer and its first chief executive, than it was under Ballmer, who had a background in sales. Ballmer, 57, had said in August that he was stepping down.

Nadella, 46, from Hyderabad, is only the third chief executive of Microsoft, an icon of American business that has struggled for position in big growth markets like mobile and internet search. The company has correctly anticipated many of the biggest changes in technology - the rise of smartphones and tablet computers, to use two examples - but it has often fumbled the execution of products developed to capitalise on those changes.

WHO’S SATYA NADELLA?

• Birth: In 1967 in Hyderabad
• Family: Has been married for 22 years and has 3 kids
• At MS: Is only the third CEO in Microsoft’s 39-year history; has been with the company for 22 years
• Interests: A cricket enthusiast; says he is defined by his curiosity and thirst for learning; buys more books than he can finish and signs up for more online courses than he can complete
• Education: Holds an engineering degree from Mangalore University, a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MBA from University of Chicago
• Salary: Was paid $7.67 mn for the year ended June 30, according to compensation research firm Equilar Inc; had 454,062 shares of unvested stock, valued at $15.7 mn till then
• Earlier role: Led the creation of Microsoft’s cloud  computing services; was with Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft

It remains to be seen whether Nadella's technical background, along with the closer involvement of Gates in product decisions, will give the company an edge it lacked during the Ballmer years. Microsoft said in a statement that Gates would "devote more time to the company, supporting Nadella in shaping technology and product direction".

Relinquishing his role as chairman will allow Gates to spend over a third of his time with product groups at Microsoft, "substantially increasing my time at the company," he said in a video made for the news of Nadella's selection. Gates said Nadella asked him to make the change in his duties at Microsoft.

"I think he's the right person for the company right now," Frank Artale, a former Microsoft manager who works with Ignition Partners, a venture capital firm in the Seattle area, said of the selection of Nadella. "A strong technical leader is truly needed there." Nadella is a contrast to Ballmer in other ways. Most recently the executive vice-president of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise businesses, Nadella peppers his conversations and speeches with technical buzzwords that people outside the industry would most likely find impenetrable. Nadella, who has been married for 22 years and has three children, counts cricket and poetry among his hobbies. In an email to Microsoft employees on Tuesday morning, he wrote that he was "defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning".

"I buy more books than I can finish," he wrote. "I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things."

A whippet-thin runner, he is known as a cerebral, collaborative leader with a low-key style that differs from Ballmer's bombastic manner. While many executives within Microsoft tend to be polarising figures, Nadella appears to be well-liked in much of the company. Still, those who know Satya Nadella (pronounced sa-TEE-ya na-DELL-uh) say that he is not a pushover as a boss.

"Managers have to keep proving themselves every day," Artale said. Nadella's star at Microsoft rose considerably in the past several years as he took charge of the company's cloud-computing efforts, a business considered vital as more business customers choose to rent applications and other programs in far-off data centres rather than run software themselves.

For years, Microsoft did not pay enough attention to how the cloud - primarily through services offered by Amazon, its crosstown rival - was attracting the creativity of a new generation of developers. When he got control of the division that included Microsoft's cloud initiatives, Nadella changed that. He began meeting with start-ups to hear more about what Microsoft needed to do to become more responsive to their needs.

---

©2014 The New York Times news Service