India is a land of talented people who are shining in the top positions of some of the top Tech companies. Microsoft, too, found a promising and energetic leader in Satya Nadella, when they were hunting for the replacement of its longtime CEO Steve Ballmer. After searching for about five months, Microsoft’s board members finalized Nadella as he had already showcased unbelievable progress in the other departments. When Microsoft was in crisis, facing stern competition from other top companies, like Apple and Samsung, Nadella sought a way out to keep Microsoft in business.
Early Life
Satya Nadella was born on 19th August 1967, to an IAS officer Nadella Yugandhar and was brought up in Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh. He completed high school from the Hyderabad Public School and further went to Manipal Institute of Technology to pursue Electrical Engineering in 1988. His interests lied in Computer Science but Electrical Engineering was a promising branch at the university so he took the course and soon found his true passion.
After completing his degree, he moved to the US at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to pursue Masters in Computer Science, in the year 1990. Further, Nadella also pursued MBA from the University of Chicago and landed his first job at Sun Microsystems and, in 1992, joined Microsoft.
Journey within Microsoft
In his early period at Microsoft, Satya led crucial projects, related to cloud computing, and soon gained the name as a leader, with a potential to spread the technology and business, in transforming Microsoft’s products. He comprehensively worked on Windows NT, an operating system made primarily for business people.
His vast, 22 years of experience, working in Microsoft has allowed him to know the company to its roots. He has served on about five different roles in the company and finally reached the highest position – Chief Executive Officer. In the year 1999, Nadella was promoted to Vice President of Microsoft bCentral and General Manager for Microsoft’s Commerce Platforms group.
Nadella was responsible to lead the growth of numerous Microsoft products like Microsoft Office Small Business, BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, and Dynamics and ERP servers too. Apart from these products, he has lead Microsoft to invest in the technologies like Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Interactive Television (ITV).
From 2000 to 2010, Nadella served on three different positions including Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions, then in 2007 as Senior Vice President of R & D for Online Services Division, and then to President of Server and Tools business. Before being chosen for Microsoft’s CEO position Nadella served as the Executive Vice President of Cloud and Enterprise Group which supplied infrastructure to Microsoft’s search engine Bing, Xbox Live Broadband gaming network, and Office-365 services.
Microsoft’s transition from just software based company to cloud computing services helped it grow faster than ever. Nadella met with start-ups understanding their needs and simultaneously making Microsoft more flexible to fulfill those needs. Most of the clients today prefer rent-based applications rather than running software themselves. And that is what Microsoft next ventured into making a huge profit.
Why was Satya Nadella the Perfect Choice?
When it could have been anyone leading the company there is a strong reason that Microsoft’s board members chose to give Satya Nadella the baton. When in 2014, Steve Ballmer declared his retirement from Microsoft, the company was also in planning to shift from software giant to Devices and Services Company. Microsoft had already acquired Nokia and developed Surface Tablet. So, naturally, the company was on a lookout for the candidate who helmed the experience of both sides.
And when it came down to choices, Satya fitted the profile very well. As he had lead various projects including Windows Server, Windows Azure, System Center, SQL Server, etc. and the Software development tools. With such a vast portfolio and years of experience made him an ideal candidate to lead the company and take it out of the crisis, it was facing, due to the competitors like Apple and Google. Finally, on 4th February 2014, Satya Nadella was declared as the new CEO of Microsoft succeeding Steve Ballmer.
Personal Life
Satya Nadella is a big fan of cricket and grew up watching and playing the game in Andhra Pradesh. He mentions that the leadership and team management skill he possesses is the results of being part of his school cricket team.
In 2015, he was awarded ‘Champion of Change Award’ by then President Barack Obama. He currently lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife Anupama and three children.
Harshal Pawar is an avid reader, a TV show addict, and a writer. He has a personal blog brainwork.wordpress.com where he jots down his articles and poetry about love and life.
He is currently pursuing film-making and wishes to bring the words written on a paper to the screen. More of all he is a scorpio.