Satya Nadella

Chairman & CEO, Microsoft

Satya Nadella is Microsoft’s chairman and chief executive. He joined the company in 1992 and led its Cloud and Enterprise group before becoming CEO in February 2014. His earlier responsibilities included enterprise software and online services. He became chairman in 2021, and his leadership includes Microsoft’s expansion of AI across its products. He holds degrees in electrical engineering, computer science and business administration.

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Photo: Brian Smale and MicrosoftCC BY-SA 4.0 · Displayed in grayscale

At a glance

Current role: Chairman & CEO, Microsoft ↗
Education: Mangalore University — bachelor’s; UW–Milwaukee — master’s; Chicago — MBA ↗
Joined Microsoft: 1992 ↗
Previously: Executive vice president, Cloud and Enterprise ↗
Before Microsoft: Technology staff, Sun Microsystems ↗
Coverage: Cloud platforms; enterprise AI; software ↗

Sources checked 25 October 2026. Selected career background and milestones.

Career, in context.

Selected research, leadership and career milestones, newest first.

Mar
2023
Microsoft introduces Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft introduces Microsoft 365 Copilot, combining language models with Microsoft Graph data and its productivity applications. Nadella presents it as a new stage of computing.
Source: Microsoft ↗
Jun
2021
Becomes Microsoft chairman
Microsoft’s independent directors elect Nadella chairman in addition to his chief executive role. John Thompson becomes lead independent director following the board leadership change.
Source: Microsoft / SEC ↗
Feb
2014
Becomes Microsoft CEO
Nadella becomes Microsoft’s chief executive in February 2014 after holding leadership positions across enterprise and consumer businesses, including the company’s cloud organisation.
Source: Microsoft ↗
Jul
2013
Leads Cloud and Enterprise
Microsoft’s reorganisation assigns Nadella responsibility for cloud and enterprise engineering, covering back-end technologies including datacentres, databases, enterprise computing and the company’s development tools.
Source: Microsoft ↗
Feb
2011
Leads Server and Tools
Microsoft promotes Nadella to president of Server and Tools, overseeing strategy, engineering, marketing and product development for its server, tools and cloud platform efforts.
Source: Microsoft ↗
1992
Joins Microsoft
Nadella joins Microsoft after working on the technology staff at Sun Microsystems, beginning a career spanning several of Microsoft’s enterprise and consumer businesses.
Source: Microsoft ↗