Reports have emerged stating that the Redmond based company, are preparing to announce Satya Nadella as their new Chief Executive Officer.
The 46 year old Hyderabad native, is a Microsoft veteran, having been with the company for 22 years. Nadella began his career with Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft.
He was the Senior Vice President of R&D for Microsoft’s Online Services Division and Vice President of the company’s Business Division. He currently heads Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group.
John Thompson, the Lead Independent Director of the company is leading the search for the new CEO. He is also rumored to take over the helm from Bill Gates as the company’s Chairman. While this has not been finalized, even if he does step down as chairman, Gates will have a supporting role in the company.
Microsoft has spent five months searching for Steve Ballmer’s replacement who announced his intent to retire last year.
Internal candidates who were in the shortlist for the CEO position include Microsoft’s internal candidates,
- Executive Vice President Tony Bates
- Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner.
The other people in the list are,
- Former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.
- Co. CEO of Ford Motor, Alan Mulally.
- The CEO-elect of Qualcomm Inc., Steve Mollenkopf
- Ericsson AB CEO Hans Vestberg.
Mullaly and Vestberg are out of the race, with the former pulling himself out, and the latter opting to stay at Ericsson.
Microsoft has only had two CEOs in its history, Gates and Ballmer, and picking Nadella as their new CEO seems to be a wise move. He has plenty of leadership experience within the company, and is credited with transforming it’s business and technology from client-server software to cloud infrastructure and services.
via Mashable and Bloomberg. Image Credit: Wikipedia.