SEATTLE – After a six-month search, Microsoft has turned to corporate insider Satva Nadella, executive vice president of the software giant?s Cloud and Enterprise Group, to replace Michigan native Steve Ballmer as president and CEO. The announcement was made Tuesday.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will move to a technology advisor role. John Thompson, lead independent director, will take over as chairman.
In choosing Nadella, Microsoft has turned to a highly accomplished executive in the mold of its Gates, who reportedly held out for a candidate with sufficient technical gravitas to inspire — and if need be, change – Microsoft’s engineer-driven corporate culture. It also confounded the early handicapping in the CEO vetting process that the board needed to land an outside candidate to shake things up.
At the still relatively young age of 46, Nadella oversaw one of Microsoft’s fastest-growing divisions — the Cloud and Enterprise Group — which accounted for $20.3 billion in revenue and $8.2 billion in operating income during the company’s last fiscal year.
Outsiders and colleagues credit Nadella with helping to move Microsoft’s server and tools group to a faster, more agile development model – so they are no longer innovating on long, 18-month release cycles. At the same time, he’s been a key player in forcing a shift in the business focus to the cloud and software-as-a-service. Brad Silverberg, who co-founded the venture investment firm Ignition Partners after a long and successful career at Microsoft, noted that Nadella had done “a remarkable job” moving Microsoft to the cloud, where its Azure service is now a strong rival to Amazon Web Services.
