Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been unanimously elected as the head of the Microsoft board of directors. So, he is the new chairman of Microsoft. He is replacing John W Thompson who would go back to his role as a lead independent director.
“In this role, Nadella will lead the work to set the agenda for the board, leveraging his deep understanding of the business to elevate the right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review,” the tech company said in a statement.
This will be the first time in two decades when Microsoft will have the same person as CEO and chairman of the company. The last time when this happened, Bill Gates was the chairman and CEO. He stepped down as CEO of Microsoft in 2000.
Satya Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft back in February 2014 and he took over from Steve Ballmer. Soon after becoming the CEO, he ordered reorganization, did some job cutting, increased focus on open-source, and made a priority of cloud computing. He also led some of the company’s billion-dollar acquisitions like LinkedIn, Nuance Communications, and ZeniMax. The new role of chairman will strengthen his grip over the software giant.
In 2020 amid coronavirus, Microsoft delivered strong results and announced a return of $35 billion in the form of share repurchases and dividends.
