Microsoft at 50: Nadella’s big reshuffle; New CEO named to focus on company's biggest biz
Microsoft, celebrating its 50th anniversary, has undergone a significant leadership shakeup. CEO Satya Nadella is now focusing on AI, with Judson Althoff taking over as CEO of its commercial business. This restructuring aims to drive growth and innovation, allowing Nadella to concentrate on cutting-edge technical work, including AI advancements and datacenter expansion.
Microsoft turned fifty-year-old this year. In the year Microsoft turned 50, CEO Satya Nadella announced one of the biggest-ever leadership overhaul and some big hires. Microsoft hired former Meta engineering boss Jay Parikh.
The company also and elevated senior executives, including commercial head Judson Althoff and Ryan Roslansky, chief executive of LinkedIn.
In October 2025, Microsoft is promoting longtime sales executive Judson Althoff to CEO of its commercial business, a major reorganization that frees up CEO Nadella to focus exclusively on technical work as the company races to dominate Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape.
The restructuring puts Althoff in charge of what Nadella called Microsoft's "most important growth engine", as he now leads marketing, sales, support and operations, which includes setting priorities for its engineering teams to match customer needs. Althoff joined Microsoft in 2013 and has led the company's global sales team for nine-plus years. The move represents one of Microsoft's most significant leadership changes in years, with Chief Marketing Officer Takeshi Numoto and his team too now reporting directly to Althoff.
Chief Operations Officer Carolina Dybeck Happe's team also joins the new organisation. Following recent changes, Satya Nadella reportedly now has 16 direct reports, broadly in line with previous years due to the consolidation of roles, including for sales and marketing. The reorganisation allows CEO Nadella and Microsoft's engineering leaders to concentrate on what he described as "highest ambition technical work" spanning datacenter construction, systems architecture, AI research and product innovation.
"We are in the midst of a tectonic AI platform shift, one that requires us to both manage and grow our at-scale commercial business today, while building the new frontier," Nadella wrote in an email to employees announcing the leadership shakeout.LinkedIn chief Roslansky has an expanded remit, including the company’s Office software suite. According to a report in Financial Times, the changes are also partly intended to test succession plans for some senior executives, according to two people familiar with the matter.
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16 executives reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella
* Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President* Kevin Scott, Chief Technology Officer* Takeshi Numoto, Chief Marketing Officer* Judson Althoff, Microsoft Commercial CEO* Carolina Dybeck Happe, Chief Operations Officer* Amy Hood, Chief Financial Officer* Scott Guthrie, Cloud + AI Executive Vice President* Amy Coleman, EVP, Chief People Officer* Kathleen Hogan, EVP of Strategy and Transformation* Rajesh Jha, EVP, Experiences + Devices* Jay Parikh, CoreAI and Engineering Manager* Charlie Bell, EVP, Microsoft Security* Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI CEO* Jason Zander, Microsoft Discovery & Quantum Executive Vice President* Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn CEO and EVP of Office* Phil Spencer, Microsoft Gaming CEO