Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella today announced a major leadership change in an email to employees. In a significant shift, Nadella has promoted Judson Althoff to Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft’s Commercial Business.
Previously, Althoff served as Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at the company. Over the past nine years, Althoff led Microsoft"s global sales organization and built Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS), the company"s most important growth engine, according to Satya Nadella.
In his new role as CEO of Commercial Business, Althoff will be responsible for product strategy, sales, services, support, marketing, operations, and revenue growth across Microsoft’s commercial business, which operates in more than 120 regional and national subsidiaries worldwide.
As part of the changes, Takeshi Numoto, Chief Marketing Officer, and his marketing team will join Althoff"s new organization. Takeshi will be reporting to Judson as CMO, but he will also report directly to Satya Nadella on all-up business models, planning, consumer marketing, and corporate brand and communications.
Microsoft is also moving its operations organization under Judson. Satya highlighted that bringing operations into the commercial business will tighten the feedback loop between what customers need and how the company delivers them. Finally, Judson will lead a new commercial leadership team that will include leaders from engineering, sales, marketing, operations, and finance.
Here"s why Microsoft is making this leadership change, according to Satya Nadella:
This will also allow our engineering leaders and me to be laser-focused on our highest-ambition technical work—across our datacenter buildout, systems architecture, AI science, and product innovation—to lead with intensity and pace in this generational platform shift. Each one of us needs to be at our very best in terms of rapidly learning new skills, adopting new ways to work, and staying close to the metal to drive innovation across the entire stack!
This key leadership shuffle sort of signals Microsoft"s focus on streamlining its commercial operations to be more agile and responsive to customer needs.