Satya Nadella has been elevated as chairman of Microsoft, a recognition of how dramatically he has transformed the world’s largest software maker as chief executive over the past seven years. He will continue to also hold the CEO position. This makes it the first time since 2000, when co-founder Bill Gates stepped down as CEO, that the same person is holding both positions, demonstrating the company’s confidence in Nadella’s ability to take it into the future.
In February 2014, when Nadella was appointed CEO, Microsoft’s flagship Windows business was weakening, and the company was struggling with its failures in the mobile phone and internet search markets. Nadella, who grew up in Hyderabad and joined Microsoft in the US in1992, refocused the company around cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and instilled a greater sense of ownership among employees - moves that paid off handsomely. The company’s share price has risen nearly 600% since 2014. And since the fourth quarter of 2018, Microsoft has frequently been the most valued publicly listed company in the world, with Apple the only other contender for that spot.
On Nadella’s appointment as chairman, Microsoft said in a statement, “In this role, Nadella will lead the work to set the agenda for the board, leveraging his deep understanding of the business to elevate the right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review.”
Nadella, 53, succeeds John Thompson, a former CEO of Symantec who took over as chairman when Gates stepped down from that post in 2014. In December, in a filing to the US stock market regulator SEC, the board heaped praise on Nadella for the way he navigated the company through the pandemic, and the manner in which he had transformed the company’s culture. “During fiscal year 2020, Microsoft increased revenue by 14% year over year, while facing unprecedented constraints due to Covid-19 in the second half of the year. Under Mr Nadella’s leadership during 2020, many of Microsoft’s products achieved significant growth…,” it said.
The board, the filing said, had asked Nadella to create additional focus on the culture of the organisation for fiscal year 2020 and is very pleased with the results that were achieved. “Based on poll data, 95% of employees feel proud to work at Microsoft. The board credits Nadella for his tremendous progress driving cultural change across the organisation,” it said.
Indian-origin execs lead 60 cos
There are some 60 foreign-headquartered companies with revenue over $1 billion each that are led by Indian origin executives, according to Indiaspora, a non-profit that seeks to bring together the Indian diaspora for collective action. A few of them combine the roles of chairman and CEO, and Satya Nadella has just joined that select group. IBM veteran Arvind Krishna, who was appointed CEO of the company early last year, took on the additional role of chairman in December. Prem Watsa of Fairfax Financial Holdings also holds both positions, as does Shantanu Narayen of Adobe, and Nikesh Arora of Palo Alto Networks. Mastercard’s Ajay Banga is executive chairman, which gives him an operational role too.
