Satya Nadella, born on August 19, 1967, is an Indian-American business executive who currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of Microsoft. He succeeded Steve Ballmer as CEO in 2014 and John W. Thompson as Chairman in 2021. Nadella's journey with Microsoft began in 1992, and he quickly became known as a leader capable of transforming the company's major product offerings. Before his role as CEO, he was the Executive Vice President of Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise group, where he spearheaded the company's shift towards cloud infrastructure and services. Nadella received the Padma Bhushan Award in 2022, one of the highest civilian awards from the government of India.
Nadella's leadership has been marked by a focus on cloud computing, a "mobile-first, cloud-first" strategy, and fostering a culture of empathy, collaboration, and growth. Under his guidance, Microsoft launched Azure in 2010, which has become the second-largest cloud platform globally. In October 2025, Nadella appointed Judson Althoff as CEO of Commercial Business, allowing him to focus more on AI and long-term technology initiatives. In early 2026, Nadella introduced new capabilities across Microsoft Sovereign Cloud, enabling customers to integrate core productivity workloads and AI models into fully disconnected sovereign environments. Also in February 2026, Microsoft appointed Charlie Bell as "Engineering Quality Czar", reporting directly to Nadella to focus on improving product reliability.
