Key Management Reshuffle Inside Microsoft

By Chris Lange Published Jun 17, 11:45AM EDT

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Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is looking to shake things up. The company plans to shift some of its senior leaders around in an effort to address evolving trends within Microsoft’s space.

Microsoft announced changes to its senior leadership team Wednesday morning. The goal behind this shift is to “drive engineering alignment against the company’s core ambitions,” which include reinventing productivity and business processes, building the intelligent cloud platform and creating more personal computing.

As a result of these moves, Stephen Elop, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Devices & Services unit, Kirill Tatarinov, executive vice president of the Microsoft Business Solutions Group, and Eric Rudder, executive vice president of Advanced Security, will leave Microsoft after a designated transition period.

In a separate move, Chief Insights Officer Mark Penn has opted to pursue another venture outside of Microsoft and will leave the company in September.

As for the additions, Terry Myerson, executive vice president, will lead the newly formed Windows and Devices Group (WDG). This team focused on enabling more personal computing experiences powered by the Windows ecosystem. Ultimately this new team will be the culmination of the engineering efforts of the current Operating Systems Group and Microsoft Devices Group.

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According to Microsoft:

Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie will continue to lead the Cloud and Enterprise (C+E) team focused on building the intelligent cloud platform that powers any application on any device. The C+E team will also focus on building high-value infrastructure and business services that are key to managing business processes, especially in the areas of data and analytics, security and management, and development tools. As a part of this announcement, the company will move the Dynamics development teams to the C+E team, enabling the company to accelerate ERP and CRM work and bring it into the mainstream C+E engineering and innovation efforts.

Considering these changes, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said:

We are aligning our engineering efforts and capabilities to deliver on our strategy and, in particular, our three core ambitions. This change will enable us to deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace.

Shares of Microsoft were relatively flat after the news, trading at $45.85 on Wednesday morning. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $49.30 and a 52-week trading range of $40.12 to $50.05.

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About the Author Chris Lange →

Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics.

Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications.

A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.