Satya Narayana Nadella has been the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft by succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 and under him, the company had witnessed considerable growth. On 16th June 2021, Nadella has been further appointed as the Executive Chairman of Microsoft, succeeding John W. Thompson.
Nadella is an Indian-American business executive. He is the former Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise group. His last position was conferred with the job of examining the computing platforms of the company.
Satya Nadella – Personal Life
Satya Nadella was born to a Telugu speaking Hindu family in Hyderabad, (At present- Telangana) India. His father, Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar was employed as an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1962 batch. His mother, Prabhavati was a Sanskrit lecturer.
His father shifted from Nadella village to Bukkapuram in Anantapuramu district, Andhra Pradesh, and later to Hyderabad.
Satya Nadella was married to Anupama in 1992. The couple has three children: two daughters and one son. His son, Zain is a legally blind quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. The family resides in Clyde Hill and Bellevue, Washington.
Education
Satya Nadella completed his primary education from Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet. He later pursued Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology , Karnataka. He completed his graduation degree in 1988.
Later, he went abroad for higher studies. He completed M.S. in computer science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1990. He also pursued MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1966.
Professional Life
Satya Nadella started his career as a member of technology staff of Sun Microsystems. In 1992, he joined Microsoft. Initially he worked on the development of Windows NT.
He later led major projects related to cloud computing at Microsoft. He held reputable leadership roles in business and enterprises across Microsoft.
He also wrote a book, HitRefresh: The quest to rediscover Microsoft’s soul and imagine a better future for everyone, 2017. The book consists his experience and career in Microsoft. Moreover, he declared that the profits from the book would go to Microsoft Philanthropies via nonprofit organizations.
Microsoft
Satya Nadella Joined Microsoft in 1992 as a young engineer. Nadella got promoted to corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions in year 2001.
He was later employed as the vice president of Research and Development (R&D) for the Online Services Division (2007-2011) and Microsoft Business Division.
He was then promoted as the President of the Server & Tools Division (2011-2014). He vividly helped the company to bring Microsoft’s database, Windows Server and developer tools to its Azure cloud. The revenue from Cloud Services grossed to $20.3 billion in June 2013 from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011. Moreover, he received $84.5 million pay in 2016.
Satya Nadella was appointed as the new CEO of Microsoft on February 2014. He was sequentially the third CEO of Microsoft, following Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Under Nadella, the company’s stock has tripled by September 2018, with a 27% annual growth rate.
After Nadella served Microsoft as its CEO for over 7 years, Nadella is appointed as the Executive Chairman of the firm on June 16, 2021. He succeeded John W. Thompson to become the chairman.
Nadella proclaimed the amalgamation of Microsoft and Linux to rival other companies like Apple, Salesforce and Dropbox. Microsoft officially joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member in 2016.
Moreover, he empowered a cultural shift at Microsoft by highlighting empathy, collaboration, and “growth mindset”. He has successfully changed the corporate world of Microsoft to a environment that emphasizes continual learning and growth.
How Satya Nadella revamped Microsoft?
Microsoft’s Acquisition
Satya Nadella’s first acquisition with Microsoft was in 2014. He acquired a Swedish video game developer, Mojang. Another company best known for the computer game, Minecraft was also acquired by him worth $2.5 billion.
He also purchased the software company, Xamarin. He then stepped up by purchasing the professional network, LinkedIn worth $26.2 billion in 2016. GitHub was officially acquired by Microsoft on 26 October, 2018 for $7.5 billion.
Satya Nadella – Boards & Committees
Board of Directors, Starbucks
Board of Trustees, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Board of Trustees, University of Chicago
Satya Nadella – Awards
He was recognized as the Time 100 honoree in 2018.
He was named Financial Times Person of the Year in 2019.
He was the Fortune magazine Businessperson of the Year in 2019.
Controversies
Satya Nadella was highly criticized when he asserted a statement that women should not ask for a raise and should trust the system. The statement was conferred by him while attending an event on Women in Computing.
He later wrote an apology letter to Microsoft through email, admitting that he was “Completely wrong”. Before the formal apology to the company, he apologized on Twitter as well.
Conclusion
Satya Nadella’s story is inspiring to all generations. Satya Nadella didn’t build an enterprise himself. He worked hard to achieve this success. He was selected to run an existing large enterprise depending on his past work and leadership skills. Nobody cares what degrees you’ve got or from which college or university you’ve graduated from.
The only thing that matters is what you can give to the company. The company only cares about your ability to do the job and in Satya Nadella’s case, Microsoft had 22 years to evaluate that.
People admire Satya Nadella for his positive leadership skills and empathy towards the employees that have made him the best CEO to work with.