Satya Nadella
CEO, Microsoft
Biography
Satya Narayana Nadella is an Indian-American business executive. He is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. Before becoming CEO, he was the executive vice president of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms.
Career Timeline
Satya Narayana Nadella[a] (born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive.
Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet before receiving a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka in 1988.
Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems as a member of its technology staff before joining Microsoft in 1992.
The revenue from Cloud Services grew to $20.3 billion in June 2013 from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011.
On 4 February 2014, Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft, the third CEO in the company's history, following Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
In contrast to previous Microsoft campaigns against the Linux operating system, Nadella proclaimed that "Microsoft ❤️ Linux", and Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member in 2016.
In 2017, Nadella published a book titled Hit Refresh, exploring his life and career at Microsoft.
In 2018 and 2024, Nadella was a Time 100 honoree.
Key Achievements
- Successfully transitioned Microsoft into a Cloud-first company (Azure)
- Orchestrated strategic acquisitions of LinkedIn and GitHub
- Forged a multi-billion dollar exclusive partnership with OpenAI
Notable Quotes
"We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization. We are the only company with history and continued focus in building platforms and ecosystems that create broad opportunity."
"Meet the new CEO: Satya Nadella's email to Microsoft employees in InfoWorld (4 February 2014)"
"CEO Satya Nadella outlines Microsoft’s “productivity and platform” direction, hints at big changes to come in The Seattle Times (10 July 2014)"