Satya Nadella

Satya Narayana Nadella (; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014. Before becoming CEO, he was the executive vice president of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise group, responsible for building and running the company's computing platforms.
Early life.
Nadella was born in Hyderabad of present-day Telangana, India into a Telugu-speaking Hindu family. His mother Prabhavati was a Sanskrit lecturer and his father, Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar, was an Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1962 batch.
Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet before receiving a bachelor's in electrical engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka in 1988. Nadella then traveled to the U.S. to study for an M.S. in computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, receiving his degree in 1990. Later, he received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1996.
Nadella said, "I always knew I wanted to build things."
Career.
Sun Microsystems.
Nadella worked at Sun Microsystems as a member of its technology staff before joining Microsoft in 1992.
Microsoft.
At Microsoft, Nadella has led major projects that included the company's move to cloud computing and the development of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world.
Nadella worked as the senior vice-president of Research and Development (R&D) for the Online Services Division and vice-president of the Microsoft Business Division. Later, he was made the president of Microsoft's $19 billion Server and Tools Business and led a transformation of the company's business and technology culture from client services to cloud infrastructure and services. He has been credited for helping bring Microsoft's database, Windows Server and developer tools to its Azure cloud. The revenue from Cloud Services grew to $20.3 billion in June 2013 from $16.6 billion when he took over in 2011. He received $84.5 million in 2016 pay.
Nadella's 2013 base salary was nearly $700,000, for a total compensation, with stock bonuses, of $17.6 million.
Previous positions held by Nadella include:
On 4 February 2014, Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft, the third CEO in the company's history, following Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
In October 2014, Nadella attended an event on Women in Computing and courted controversy after he made a statement that women should not ask for a raise and should trust the system. Nadella was criticised for the statement and he later apologized on Twitter. He then sent an email to Microsoft employees admitting he was "Completely wrong."
Nadella's tenure at Microsoft has emphasized working with companies and technologies with which Microsoft also competes, including Apple Inc., Salesforce, IBM, and Dropbox. In contrast to previous Microsoft campaigns against the Linux operating system, Nadella proclaimed that "Microsoft ❤️ Linux", and Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member in 2016.
Under Nadella, Microsoft revised its mission statement to "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more". He orchestrated a cultural shift at Microsoft by emphasizing empathy, collaboration, and 'growth mindset'. He has transformed Microsoft's corporate culture into one that emphasizes continual learning and growth.
In 2014, Nadella's first acquisition with Microsoft's was of Mojang, a Swedish game company best known for the computer game "Minecraft", for $2.5 billion. He followed that by purchasing Xamarin for an undisclosed amount. He oversaw the purchase of professional network LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion. On October 26, 2018, Microsoft acquired GitHub for US$7.5 billion.
Since Nadella became CEO, Microsoft stock had tripled by September 2018, with a 27% annual growth rate.
Awards and recognition.
In 2018, he was a "Time" 100 honoree. In 2019, Nadella was named "Financial Times" Person of the Year and "Fortune" magazine Businessperson of the Year. In 2020, Nadella was recognized as Global Indian Business Icon at CNBC-TV18's India Business Leader Awards in Mumbai.
Personal life.
In 1992, Nadella married Anupama, the daughter of his father's IAS batchmate. She was his junior at Manipal pursuing a B.Arch in the Faculty of Architecture. The couple have three children, a son and two daughters, and live in Clyde Hill and Bellevue, Washington. His son Zain is a legally blind quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.
Nadella is an avid reader of American and Indian poetry. He also nurses a passion for cricket, having played on his school team. Nadella and his wife Anupama are part of the ownership group of Seattle Sounders FC, a Major League Soccer club.
Nadella has authored a book titled "Hit Refresh" that explores his life, his career in Microsoft and how he believes technology will shape the future. He announced that the profits from the book would go to Microsoft Philanthropies and through that to nonprofit organizations.