Microsoft’s Rajesh Jha To Retire, CEO Satya Nadella Promotes Seven Executives

The executives getting promoted are Perry Clarke, Charles Lamanna, Pavan Davuluri, Ryan Roslansky, Jeff Teper, Sumit Chauhan and Kirk Koenigsbauer.

Rajesh Jha, a 35-plus-year Microsoft veteran who ascended the ranks to executive vice president of the Experiences + Devices Group, will move into an advisory role July 1 with a variety of executive moves and promotions accompanying his retirement.

As part of Jha’s retirement from the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant, four of his direct reports are moving up to executive vice president, becoming direct reports to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Jha (pictured) said in a message to Microsoft employees posted on the company’s website.

Three other Microsoft executives are receiving promotions as part of the leadership transition and Microsoft is maintaining priorities around its Copilot artificial intelligence tool while the Secure Future Initiative (SFI) launched in 2023 and the Quality Excellence Initiative (QEI) are unchanged.

“Working with you all over the years, in the service of customers, has been an incredible privilege for me,” Jha said in a message to Microsoft employees posted on the company’s website. “I am deeply grateful.”

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Microsoft Leadership Changes

CRN has reached out to Microsoft for additional comment.

In a separate message to employees also posted on the company’s website, CEO Nadella called Jha “a constant throughout my entire life at Microsoft” and among “the pantheon of leaders who have truly shaped this company.”

“From our earliest days working together, I have admired his unwavering commitment to his team, to our customers, to the products we build, and to the company,” Nadella said. “I have always been struck by his operational rigor, his ability to make the hard strategic calls, lead through the grind, and emerge stronger on the other side. That, to me, is what true leadership looks like.”

Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992 and became CEO in 2014. Jha’s roles over the decades include time as corporate vice president of Outlook and Office 365 and executive vice president of Microsoft’s Office Product Group.

In 2016, the exit of Microsoft Applications and Services Group executive Qi Lu gave Jha greater responsibilities and led to Jha’s move to a direct report to CEO Nadella.

In 2018, Jha assumed leadership of the newly formed experiences and devices team, broken out from the Windows and devices group as the Microsoft cloud business took over as one of the vendor’s biggest growth drivers.

Jha and his leadership team are finalizing transition details, including decision ownership and the future organizational structure for a smooth start when Microsoft’s 2027 fiscal year begins July 1.

The four Jha direct reports now reporting directly to Nadella are:

• Perry Clarke, a 20-plus-year Microsoft veteran now serving as president of Microsoft 365 Core;
• Charles Lamanna, with Microsoft on and off since 2009 and now president of Microsoft’s Business & Industry Copilot division. Lamanna helped announce the vendor’s new Copilot Cowork product on Monday;
• Pavan Davuluri, a 25-year Microsoft veteran who became president of the Windows + Devices organization in September;
• Ryan Roslansky, CEO of Microsoft’s social media network LinkedIn who became a Microsoft EVP in June.

The title promotions Jha disclosed as part of his leadership transition include Jeff Teper to executive vice president. Teper has been with Microsoft for more than 33 years and serves as president of the Collaborative Apps and Platforms organization, where he works on Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Copilot integrations and more.

Two executives are receiving the title of president as part of the leadership changes. One of them is Sumit Chauhan, a 30-year Microsoft veteran who has held the title of corporate vice president since 2016. She heads up a wide portfolio of Microsoft 365 experiences and leads product, design and engineering teams for Microsoft Office’s flagship products and creator tools.

The other president promotion goes to Kirk Koenigsbauer, with Microsoft on and off for about 30 years, most recently serving as corporate vice president and chief operating officer of the Experiences + Devices Group.

The SFI project was launched after an Exchange Online breach was discovered in June 2023, which saw the compromise of email accounts belonging to multiple U.S. government agencies.

As for the QEI project, overseeing it is Charlie Bell, whom Microsoft announced in February would take on the new executive vice president of engineering role with Hayete Gallot succeeding him as head of the security division after a brief tenure at Google Cloud.

Partnered on the initiative with Bell–who joined Microsoft in 2021 from Amazon as executive vice president of security, compliance, identity and management–is Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the Microsoft Cloud + AI Group, and Mala Anand, executive vice president and chief customer experience officer, Microsoft said in February.