Microsoft has a new CEO – but don't worry, Satya Nadella isn't out of a job.

The tech giant has announced Judson Althoff will become CEO of Microsoft's commercial business, while Nadella is staying on as the wider CEO, but better able to focus on the technical aspects of the company amid the AI race.

Althoff will head a new organization inside Microsoft that will take in sales, marketing, finance, and operations.

Nadella said in a blog post that the move was necessary to continue to manage and grow the existing commercial business while also building the "new frontier" of AI – and "executing flawlessly across both."

"To accelerate this, we will increasingly need to bring together sales, marketing, operations, and engineering to drive growth and strengthen our position as the partner of choice for AI transformation," Nadella said, later adding: "With this context, I have asked Judson Althoff to take on an expanded role as CEO of our commercial business."

Passing off that work to Althoff will allow Nadella to focus on tech – notably that around AI.

"This will also allow our engineering leaders and me to be laser focused on our highest ambition technical work – across our datacenter buildout, systems architecture, AI science, and product innovation – to lead with intensity and pace in this generational platform shift," Nadella added.

Promotion for Althoff

Althoff joined Microsoft in 2013 as the president of Microsoft North America, according to Reuters, and in 2021 led the newly organised division that brought together global sales, marketing, and commercial.

"Over the past nine years, Judson has led our global sales organization and was the architect behind designing and building Microsoft Customer and Partner Solutions (MCAPS) into what it is today: the 'number one seed' in the industry and our company's most important growth engine," Nadella noted.

This latest move now adds operations into the mix, with marketing now reporting to Judson as well as operations. "By bringing operations into the commercial business, we can tighten the feedback loop between what customers need and how we deliver and support them," Nadella added.

Beyond that, Judson will lead a new commercial leadership team that brings together leaders from engineering, marketing, operations, and finance to drive our strategy, governance, market readiness, and sales.

Major change at Microsoft

The change is a significant reorganisation for a company that has only had three CEOs in its entire history: Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and now Nadella, who took over in 2014.

"This isn't just evolution, it's reinvention, for each of us professionally and for Microsoft," Nadella said.

But it isn't the first time a company has split the top job. Oracle last month named two CEOs to take over from Safra Catz, who herself shared the role with Mark Hurd until his death in 2019. Spotify this week announced dual CEOs to take over the top job from founder Daniel Ek, while Netflix has used a similar model since 2020.

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HPE has announced the imminent departure of its chief financial officer (CFO), Tarek Robbiati, who is set to become CEO of RingCentral. 

The cloud and infrastructure giant will replace Robbiati – when he officially departs on 25 August – with Jeremy Cox, senior vice president, corporate controller, and chief tax officer, as HPE’s interim CFO.

Robbiati joined HPE in 2018 after spending just over two-and-a-half years as CFO at Sprint. His CV also includes ten years at Accenture and just under two years as VP of corporate finance at Orange.

Antonio Neri, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, paid tribute to Robbiati, who joined HPE shortly after Neri became CEO, wishing him success as CEO of RingCentral.

HPE has undergone significant changes during Robbiati’s tenure. Neri highlighted the organization's transition to an edge-to-cloud company, adding: “We are in a strong position to capitalize on significant market opportunities at the edge, in hybrid cloud and with AI.”

As well as a shift in portfolio to higher-growth and higher-market segments, HPE also launched its hybrid cloud service, GreenLake, shortly before Robbiati's arrival.

“We transformed an iconic company to a platform-based model, fueled by a software and services-rich portfolio,” said Robbiati, reflecting on his nearly five-year stint at the company.

HPE recently reported revenues of $7 billion, up 4% year-on-year, and an increase in its annualized revenue run-rate to $1.1 billion, up 35% from the previous year. It estimated Q3 2023 revenue to be $6.7 billion to $7.2 billion and fiscal 2023 revenue growth to be 4 – 6%.

His interim replacement, Jeremy Cox, is an HPE veteran who’s been with the company for over 18 years. He’ll serve as CFO while while the board of directors search for a permanent replacement.

Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral’s founder and current CEO, will transition to executive chairman when Robbiati takes the helm on 28 August. Robbiati has been a member of the RingCentral board of directors since December 2022. RingCentral’s president and chief operating officer (COO), Mo Katibeh, will also step down, but plans to remain a special advisor.

Salesforce has a new advert (featuring Matthew McConaughey) that manages to trash some of the world’s most famous tech CEOs in just one minute.

“While the others look to the metaverse and mars, let's restore ours,” McConaughey rhythms (almost) while riding in a hot air balloon. The advert starts in Space and riffs on the classic Star Trek line about the final frontier, which is then dismissed as corporate escapism. “It’s not time to escape,” McConaughey explains. “It’s time to engage”.

Now, let’s not be naive. This is nothing but opportunistic marketing by Salesforce; they’ve clearly seen the memes that mock space-obsessed billionaires and decided to incorporate that in their own advertising. There is, however, a beauty in the shade it manages to throw at Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

Organisations are often a reflection of their leaders; you may have recently heard the phrase “a fish rots from the head down” when people talk about the UK government, for example. It’s, therefore, hard to ignore that a large part of a company’s culture usually comes directly from its CEO.

The feeling I get – having never worked for or met the Salesforce founder and co-CEO, Marc Benioff – is that he is effortlessly cool. He’s cool in a way that Elon Musk would clearly love to be when he’s trying to be a bantersaurus on Twitter; men would rather talk trash on social media than get therapy. Benioff doesn’t go in for that kind of attention-grabbing nonsense. Instead, he strikes the right balance between likeability and respectability. That includes wearing stylish hats and sharing the CEO role for his own company with Bret Taylor.

Marc Benioff (pictured) is co-CEO of Salesforce alongside Bret Taylor

Amazon founder and former CEO, Jeff Bezos, is also keen on space flight and many people hate him for this. Partly, this is because he seems hell-bent on spending billions of dollars on finding a ‘new world’ while the one we already have slowly burns. Amazon workers – the ones generating his vast wealth – would probably prefer better working conditions and wages than funding his fantasy life on Mars. I doubt they also want to see the city of Rotterdam temporarily dismantle its Koningshaven bridge just to accommodate his massive superyacht, as reported by Dutch media. Men would rather takedown historic buildings than get therapy.

From our perspective on the ground, these billionaires seem to be trying to fly away from certain responsibilities (like proper taxation), which also seems to be the case for Mark Zuckerberg and his virtual world. His company is taking extreme steps to avoid facing the consequences of building a toxic platform, like changing its name to ‘Meta’ and indulging in the dead cat strategy that is the metaverse. Men will literally tank their businesses for a new concept than get therapy.

You don’t see Benioff fobbing off employees for a couple of minutes at the edge of space with Captian Kirk and you certainly don’t see him shirk responsibility. He often refers to the Salesforce ecosystem – partners and employees – as his “Ohana” which is Hawaiian for family. Throughout the pandemic, with the pros and cons of remote working being hashed out by CEOs around the world, Benioff was announcing the end of the nine-to-five and offering more flexibility to his staff.

What’s more, the company is exploring new frontiers here on Earth. It recently announced plans for its own business-focused TV channel last year. We can expect some polished programmes if this latest advert is anything to go by; it’s the best thing McConaughey’s done since Interstellar.