Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer, shared the below communication today with Microsoft employees.
Marketing excellence at Microsoft is key to how we drive business growth and for the past ten years, Chris Capossela has done a terrific job as our CMO driving revenue and brand love for the company. The numerous accolades Microsoft continues to receive in terms of brand recognition and marketing awards are impressive and a testament to the strong team he has built. Chris and I have been working on his succession plan for some time, and as this new era of AI is upon us, we’ve decided this is the right time to put that plan into action.
I am pleased to announce that Takeshi Numoto is being promoted to Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, reporting to me. Takeshi has been at the heart of our Cloud transformation, he’s a fantastic systems thinker who works end-to-end across all functions from engineering to finance to operations to sales, and he’s built a great team of marketing leaders. I’m thrilled for him to step into the CMO role for Microsoft and drive our vision forward.
I’m also excited that Yusuf Mehdi is being promoted to Executive Vice President, Consumer Chief Marketing Officer. He will join the senior leadership team and report to Takeshi. Yusuf will serve as the champion of our end-user experiences and build on his work launching several of our AI-powered services to lead Microsoft Copilot product marketing. He will also continue to lead our Search, Ad, & News and Devices & Creativity Customer Solution Areas (CSAs).
And with our recently closed acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, we are doubling down on our Gaming business. To realize our growth potential, Ami Silverman and her Consumer Sales Organization will move to report to Phil Spencer, CEO of Gaming. Ami will continue to drive all our consumer sales including our Devices & Creativity CSA through our direct and partner sales channels.
After 32 years of dedicated service to our company, employees, and customers, Chris is leaving Microsoft. Over the many years we’ve worked together, I’ve known and respected Chris as a leader who has exemplified a complete, unwavering commitment to our mission and our culture. As a leader and a colleague, he’s always shown how deeply he cares about both the “what” and the “how” of driving our business forward. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work closely with him and for the significant impact he’s had on our company through marketing leadership, championing our culture and D&I, and developing world class talent that will serve us well into the future.
Please join me in congratulating Takeshi and Yusuf on their new roles and extending a big thank you to Chris for all his contributions to Microsoft.
Satya
