Microsoft Commercial Operations CEO Judson Althoff appears in an interview in San Francisco, January 27, 2017.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
microsoft Months after the software company named sales leader Judson Althoff CEO of its commercial operations, the company on Tuesday announced the promotion of four sales executives to its workforce.
Investors are wondering how far Microsoft and other established software companies can grow as office workers use generative artificial intelligence models to build new applications. Microsoft stock has fallen 15% so far this year, lagging other Magnificent Seven technology stocks.
Microsoft announced last week that its Azure cloud growth rate was lower than some forecasts. Executives said they want to allocate more computing resources to research and development teams and AI products such as Microsoft 365 Copilot productivity software add-on and GitHub Copilot coding assistant, while meeting the demands of Azure customers.
“Mr. Judson will expand his executive authority to focus more time on Microsoft’s commercial product strategy and keep the feedback loop between customers and product decisions as small as possible,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC in an email. “This feedback loop is critical right now, as AI adoption is progressing at an extraordinary pace and our customers expect these capabilities to be delivered to their businesses faster than ever.”
Althoff said in the memo that Deb Kapp, the chief revenue officer who leads Microsoft’s global enterprise sales operations, is the company’s newest executive vice president. In recent years, Mr. Cupp has moved from president of Microsoft’s U.S. operations to president of North America and then president of the Americas.
Nick Parker, chief business officer of worldwide sales and solutions, will also become executive vice president. He has been with the company since 2000.
Ralph Haupter will become executive vice president and chief revenue officer, small business and channels. Mr. Haupter joined Microsoft because IBM He joined the company in 2005 and served as CEO and Chairman of Windows and Office’s Greater China business for four years.
Mala Anand, former SAP The executive, who joined Microsoft in 2019, will become executive vice president and chief customer experience officer.
The four will continue to report directly to Mr. Althoff, a spokeswoman said.
Satya Nadella, who served as Microsoft’s executive vice president from 2014 until becoming CEO, has focused on innovation as Althoff takes on greater responsibility. At a software developer event in India in December, he showed off an app he built to study topics using a number of generative AI models.
“I started my career at the command line,” Nadella said in a podcast recorded at Davos in Switzerland in January. You can also exit from the command line. ”
clock: AllianceBernstein’s Jim Tierney says investors are missing the big picture in Microsoft
