Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is naming one of the company’s top executives to an even bigger role, and redefining his own job in a new effort to capitalize on the AI revolution.
Judson Althoff, a 12-year Microsoft executive who has spent nine years leading the company’s commercial sales organization, will take on the newly created position of CEO of its commercial business. He will oversee a reformulated commercial team that includes engineering, sales, marketing, operations, and finance leaders representing more than 75% of Microsoft’s revenue.
The move consolidates Microsoft’s efforts to build and market products for businesses as it competes against rivals such as Amazon and Google, its own partner OpenAI, and a new wave of AI startups.
It also shows Nadella’s intent to delegate much of Microsoft’s day-to-day commercial execution, giving him more time to work with the company’s engineers on its long-term technology ambitions.
“This isn’t just evolution, it’s reinvention, for each of us professionally and for Microsoft,” Nadella wrote in an email to employees Wednesday outlining the changes and summing up the moment.
Nadella in ‘founder mode’
The move follows a tumultuous period for the company. Microsoft has grappled with a public cybersecurity crisis, internal turmoil from widespread layoffs, and growing scrutiny over the role of its technology in international conflicts. It’s also spending unprecedented sums on AI infrastructure and seeing its overall business reach new heights in the stock market.
The change for Nadella reflects the spirit of a Silicon Valley trend known as founder mode, in which longtime leaders focus more on generational technology and platform shifts and less on the nitty-gritty of the day-to-day business. Nadella has been at Microsoft for 33 of its 50 years, including 11 as CEO.
The goal of the new commercial organization under Althoff is to “drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation,” Nadella explained in the email.
“This will also allow our engineering leaders and me to be laser focused on our highest ambition technical work—across our datacenter buildout, systems architecture, AI science, and product innovation—to lead with intensity and pace in this generational platform shift,” he added.
Althoff’s new role and internal changes
Nadella credited Althoff with designing and building Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS), calling it the company’s most important growth engine and the “number one seed” in the industry. He said Althoff’s expanded role positions Microsoft to accelerate growth while strengthening its standing as the “partner of choice for AI transformation.”
Althoff is an Ohio native who joined Microsoft in March 2013, after holding senior sales positions at Oracle and EMC. In his role as Microsoft EVP and chief commercial officer, he has been responsible for the sales strategy and revenue growth of the company’s commercial business.
Nadella outlined other internal reporting changes as part of the new structure:
- Microsoft’s marketing and operations organizations will now both report directly to Althoff. Nadella described this as a part of an effort to “tighten the feedback loop between what customers need and how we deliver and support them.”
- Chief Marketing Officer Takeshi Numoto and his team will be part of Althoff’s organization while continuing to report to Nadella on central issues such as “on all-up business models, planning, consumer marketing, and corporate brand and communications,” as the email put it.
- Chief Operating Officer Carolina Dybeck Happe will continue to report to Nadella, working on the company’s transformation while partnering with Althoff’s organization.
Microsoft’s commercial businesses — spanning Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics, LinkedIn, and related services — generated about $220 billion of the company’s $282 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025, according to the company’s most recent annual report.
Althoff’s new position is part of a broader trend of Microsoft having CEOs of individual businesses, including Mustafa Suleyman of Microsoft AI; Phil Spencer of Microsoft Gaming; Ryan Roslansky of LinkedIn; and Thomas Dohmke, of Microsoft’s GitHub subsidiary.
Here is the full text of Nadella’s email, as made public by Microsoft.
We are in the midst of a tectonic AI platform shift, one that requires us to both manage and grow our at-scale commercial business today, while building the new frontier and executing flawlessly across both.
History shows that general purpose technologies like AI drive step changes in productivity and GDP growth, and we have a unique opportunity to help our customers and the world realize this promise.
Our success depends on enabling commercial and public sector customers and partners to combine their human capital with new AI capabilities to change the frontier of how they operate. To accelerate this, we will increasingly need to bring together sales, marketing, operations, and engineering to drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation.
With this context, I have asked Judson Althoff to take on an expanded role as CEO of our commercial business. Over the past nine years, Judson has led our global sales organization and was the architect behind designing and building Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) into what it is today: the “number one seed” in the industry and our company’s most important growth engine.
Takeshi Numoto and his marketing team will join this new organization, with Takeshi reporting directly to Judson as CMO, while also continuing to report directly to me on all-up business models, planning, consumer marketing, and corporate brand and communications.
Our operations organization will also move to report to Judson. By bringing operations into the commercial business, we can tighten the feedback loop between what customers need and how we deliver and support them. Carolina Dybeck Happe will continue to report to me, as she works on our overall company transformation and continues to closely partner with Judson.
Additionally, Judson will lead a new commercial leadership team that brings together leaders from engineering, sales, marketing, operations, and finance to drive our product strategy and governance, GTM readiness, and sales motions with shared accountability for the rigor and executional excellence our customers expect.
This will also allow our engineering leaders and me to be laser focused on our highest ambition technical work—across our datacenter buildout, systems architecture, AI science, and product innovation—to lead with intensity and pace in this generational platform shift. Each one of us needs to be at our very best in terms of rapidly learning new skills, adopting new ways to work, and staying close to the metal to drive innovation across the entire stack!!
This isn’t just evolution, it’s reinvention, for each of us professionally and for Microsoft.
Satya
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