Satya Nadella appoints a new CEO to run Microsoft’s biggest businesses

Microsoft is promoting Judson Althoff, currently executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft, to a new role as CEO of its commercial business. It’s the latest shakeup inside the company, as Microsoft navigates what CEO Satya Nadella calls a “tectonic AI platform shift.” It’s also a move that will allow Nadella to focus on more technical work at Microsoft, while still remaining overall CEO.

In an internal memo to employees today, Nadella announced Althoff’s promotion and said it’s linked with the need for Microsoft to reinvent itself in the AI era and “bring together sales, marketing, operations, and engineering to drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation.”

Althoff has led Microsoft’s global sales organization for the past nine years, helping the company build out its Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) division. He will now also be responsible for the operations and marketing teams that help sell Microsoft’s software and services to businesses, but not the engineering teams that help build them.

“By bringing operations into the commercial business, we can tighten the feedback loop between what customers need and how we deliver and support them,” Nadella wrote in his memo. “Additionally, Judson will lead a new commercial leadership team that brings together leaders from engineering, sales, marketing, operations, and finance.”

Microsoft has increasingly given CEO titles to the leaders of some of its biggest businesses, such as Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer and Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman. Microsoft also used CEO positions with its GitHub and LinkedIn acquisitions, although the GitHub CEO position disappeared after Thomas Dohmke resigned over the summer.

This latest organization shakeup might look like it places Althoff as almost like a deputy to Nadella, particularly because he’s now in charge of the main way that Microsoft makes money from its all-important enterprise customers. But given there are a variety of CEOs of big businesses at Microsoft, this looks like more of a move to allow Nadella to focus on Microsoft’s technical work rather than a sign he plans to step down anytime soon.

“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,” Nadella write. “This isn’t just evolution, it’s reinvention — for each of us professionally and for Microsoft.”

Here’s Nadella’s memo in full:

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 and executing flawlessly across both.

History shows that general purpose technologies like AI drive step changes in productivity and GDP growth, and we have a unique opportunity to help our customers and the world realize this promise.

Our success depends on enabling commercial and public sector customers and partners to combine their human capital with new AI capabilities to change the frontier of how they operate. To accelerate this, we will increasingly need to bring together sales, marketing, operations, and engineering to drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation.

With this context, I have asked Judson Althoff to take on an expanded role as CEO of our commercial business. Over the past nine years, Judson has led our global sales organization and was the architect behind designing and building Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) into what it is today: the “number one seed” in the industry and our company’s most important growth engine.

Takeshi Numoto and his marketing team will join this new organization, with Takeshi reporting directly to Judson as CMO, while also continuing to report directly to me on all-up business models, planning, consumer marketing, and corporate brand and communications.

Our operations organization will also move to report to Judson. By bringing operations into the commercial business, we can tighten the feedback loop between what customers need and how we deliver and support them. Carolina Dybeck Happe will continue to report to me, as she works on our overall company transformation and continues to closely partner with Judson.

Additionally, Judson will lead a new commercial leadership team that brings together leaders from engineering, sales, marketing, operations, and finance to drive our product strategy and governance, GTM readiness, and sales motions with shared accountability for the rigor and executional excellence our customers expect.

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 isn’t just evolution, it’s reinvention, for each of us professionally and for Microsoft.

Satya