Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has become the chair of the company — replacing independent director John Thompson — following a unanimous vote of the software company’s board on June 16.
Microsoft stated that Nadella will lead in setting the board’s agenda, while leveraging his business knowledge to elevate right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review.
The company — under Nadella’s seven-year watch — regained the title of world’s most valuable public company to be today the second-most valuable with Microsoft stock rising over 600%.
Besides focusing on cloud computing services to power other company’s applications, Nadella’s efforts have also witnessed the company expanding through acquisitions of business social network LinkedIn, source code-sharing site GitHub and video-game developer Zenimax.
While the company faced challenges in advertising and other markets, Nadella was lauded by Microsoft’s board members — for his leadership during the coronavirus pandemic – that was highlighted in the proxy statement the company filed in December about the company delivering 14% revenue growth in the 2020 fiscal year.,
The board credits Mr. Nadella for his tremendous progress driving cultural change across the organization, especially given the unprecedented impact of Covid-19 on our business and our people,” Microsoft stated about Nadella, who is one of Microsoft’s top individual shareholders with over 1.6 million shares of company stock. Bill Gates — co-founder of Microsoft and its first CEO – had stepped down from the company’s board, after its investigating a report about Gates trying to start an intimate relationship with an employee in 2000, according to a company spokesperson.
