14 DAY TRIAL // Satya Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer at the helm of Microsoft in February 2014, and since then, the new boss has been trying to push the company towards a completely new approach that puts consumers at the core of everything. At least, that’s what he claims on pretty much every public appearance.
Ballmer, who was considered to be more of a sales guy than a technology company leader, wanted Microsoft to focus more on devices and services and even started a massive transformation process that debuted last year and was supposed to be continued by his successor.
Nadella, on the other hand, who spent his last year at Microsoft working on cloud solutions, wants the company to step away from this devices and services focus and migrate towards what he calls a mobile first, cloud first world.
But bringing on an entirely new strategy wasn’t enough for Nadella to make sure that Microsoft was heading in the right direction, so the number one figure in the software industry started to rebuild the company from the ground up. In a way that he says could change the world.
Steve Ballmer’s complete retirement
Ballmer stepped down as Microsoft CEO in February, but at that time, he expressed his intention to stay close to the company and work together with the leadership team whenever he was asked to.
Soon after that, Ballmer became the number one individual stakeholder in the company, as Bill Gates, co-founder of the software giant and currently a technical advisor for Satya Nadella, continues to sell shares on a regular basis.
Ballmer, however, decided to retire completely from Microsoft last month, after purchasing his very own NBA team and planning to focus more on basketball and less on the software industry. He, however, remains a company shareholder, but is no longer part of the board of directors.
There’s no doubt that Nadella knew that this was coming, so he also reshuffled the board to make sure that he was not the only one pushing Microsoft in a new direction.
A completely new board of directors
Nadella convinced Bill Gates to hold a more active role within the company, but also appointed John Thompson as chairman. Thomson, who is also the CEO of the privately held Virtual Instruments company, previously served as vice-president of IBM and CEO of Symantec Corporation, so there’s no doubt that he’s the right man for the job.
Recently, Microsoft has announced the departure of two new board members and the appointment of other two in order to fill in vacant spots.
Dave Marquardt and Dina Dublon decided to retire in December, after the annual shareholders' meeting, and although no reasons have been provided for this switch, the new direction of the company headed by Satya Nadella could be a possible explanation why they wanted to leave. Teri List-Stoll, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Kraft Foods Group Inc., and Charles W. Scharf, chief executive officer of Visa Inc., will join the company in October.
Here are all board members of Microsoft at this point:
John W. Thompson, Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer of Virtual Instruments; Dina Dublon, former chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase; Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and technology advisor; Maria M. Klawe, president, Harvey Mudd College; David F. Marquardt, general partner at August Capital; G. Mason Morfit, president, ValueAct Capital; Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO; Charles H. Noski, former vice chairman of Bank of America Corp.; Dr. Helmut Panke, former chairman of the board of management at BMW AG; John W. Stanton, chairman, Trilogy Equity Partners and Trilogy International Partners
Upper management changes and division reshuffle
Satya Nadella announced a shocking layoff campaign in July, after completing the acquisition of Nokia’s Devices and Services unit, with approximately 18,000 employees being let go as part of this restructuring process.
Nadella said that Microsoft was trying to streamline the development process of new products and wanted to make everything work more effectively within the company, so letting some people go was the only way to do it.
The company lost not only testers and engineers, but also product managers and important executives that had been with Microsoft for many years. Nadella, however, has always been prepared and brought on board other skilled executives to keep everything going.
Windows, for example, is currently led by Terry Myerson, who officially serves as the executive vice president of the Operating Systems group with responsibility for the strategy and development of operating systems. He took over this role before the appointment of Satya Nadella and is one of those who agreed with the new CEO’s approach and remained within the company.
Previously, Ballmer’s Microsoft lost Steven Sinofsky, one of the most appreciated and talented Windows leaders in the history of the company, but also the one responsible for Windows 7 and Windows 8. Although the latter product hasn’t really impressed, Sinofsky left the company after the launch of Windows 8, with some sources from within the company claiming that his departure was caused by the growing tension between him and Ballmer.
Focus on consumers
Satya Nadella is the very first CEO of Microsoft who has insisted that the company should focus more on consumers, pointing out that user feedback is essential for building better products addressing their needs.
He emphasized that Microsoft should become obsessed over customers from his very first letter sent to company employees after his appointment in February and he says pretty much the same thing on every occasion right now too.
“We will obsess over our customers. Obsessing over our customers is everybody's job. I'm looking to the engineering teams to build the experiences our customers love. I'm looking to the sales and marketing organizations to showcase our unique value propositions and drive customer usage first and foremost,” he said.
At this point, it appears that Microsoft is indeed going in the right direction, but the very first products from Nadella’s era are only now seeing daylight.
And as usual, users are the only ones who can decide if the CEO is doing the right thing or not.