WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Microsoft gets an Indian-american to chart its future in an increasingly mobile world
Mirza Ghalib, the Mughal-era poet, is not known to have written about information technology, or Microsoft’s employees would have heard about it from their new chief executive officer ( CEO). The Hyderabad-born Satya Nadella, 46, unveiled as the third CEO of the $77-billion technology giant, after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, is a fan of ghazals and quotes Ghalib with ease. Introducing himself to the company’s employees after his appointment, Nad- ella compared poetry to code: “You are trying to take something that can be described in many, many sentences and pages of prose, but you can convert it into a couple lines of poetry and still get the essence, so it’s that compression.” At a time when Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, is lagging behind its rivals in growth sectors like Internet search and mobile computing, Nadella will need both the light touch of poetry and a heavier dose of prose to propel future growth. The 22-year Microsoft veteran proved his mettle in his previous position leading the company’s cloud and enterprise businesses, muscling it into new areas where it had been left behind by competitors like Google and Amazon. “Here comes Satya with his team and he fires them up and they start making inroads from having zero market share to single digit, then to double digits and then to a reasonably healthy piece of the action,” says Vijay Vashee, a former manager of PowerPoint at Microsoft, and founder of the Seattle chapter of The Indus Entrepreneurs or TiE, a networking group for entrepreneurs.
Observers have said Nadella could
put a friendlier face on a company often described as a market bully, and led in recent years by Ballmer who was seen as brash and bombastic.
Samir Bodas, the Seattle-based CEO of Icertis, a cloud services provider and a Microsoft partner company, recalls the time he gave Nadella feedback about Windows Azure, Microsoft’s Cloud platform. Nadella immediately arranged for him to meet senior leaders at Microsoft. “He is always asking about how Microsoft can be a better partner. He listens intensely and more importantly, he responds,” says Bodas.
Nadella’s technical expertise is also seen as a key reason for his elevation after Ballmer, who had a sales background. Nadella has engineering degrees from the Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who will step down as chairman and take on a more active role as technology adviser, said, “Satya is a proven leader with hardcore engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together. His vision for how technology will be used and experienced around the world is exactly what Microsoft needs as the company enters its next chapter of expanded product innovation and growth.”
This could be especially true as Microsoft plays catch-up in new growth areas, an unfamiliar role for a company long used to dominating the market. Nadella outlined the challenges in a letter to Microsoft’s employees, writing, “Our industry does not respect tradition—it only respects innovation. Our job is to ensure that Microsoft thrives in a mobile and cloud-first world.” And Nadella’s experience in these areas, Vashee says, makes him the right person for the job. “He is a guy within Microsoft who understands what it is to be an underdog and how to fiercely compete and survive and make inroads and have impact,” he adds.
Nadella was chosen following an often erratic months-long search after Ballmer announced in August 2013 that he planned to step down as CEO. Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor, was mentioned as a possible choice, and in recent days there was speculation that another Indian-born tech executive, Google’s Sundar Pichai, had emerged as a top contender. Nadella’s friends say his humility and willingness to listen mask a fierce intensity and sense of determination: After joining Microsoft in 1992, Nadella flew from Seattle to Chicago every weekend for MBA classes.
Microsoft now becomes the biggest American company to be headed by an Indian-born CEO. Among other highprofile Indian-American CEOs are Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo and MasterCard’s Ajay Banga. Vikram Pandit had a troubled tenure as Citibank’s CEO from 2007 to 2012. “Indian-Americans have done well in the tech sector and in corporate America for a long time now. This is a double win because it’s both about technology and the corporate sector,” says Sunil Kumar, dean of University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where Nadella earned his MBA degree.
Ro Khanna, who is running for the Democratic party’s nomination for this year’s congressional elections from a constituency that includes California’s Silicon Valley, and who counts tech industry leaders such as Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer among his donors, said Nadella’s appointment “exemplifies the incredible contributions that IndianAmericans have made towards growing the economy, furthering innovation, and creating good paying jobs”.
Nadella is now one of the world’s most powerful executives, yet, those who know him say he is unassuming. When Bodas went to his home for dinner a few months ago, Nadella arrived late because he had stopped on the way back from work to pick up the food himself. “If you walk past him in a mall or airport, you’ll see just another ordinary guy,” says Bodas. In a photograph released by Microsoft, Nadella is seen wearing a hoodie, looking like an older version of hoodie-favouring Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Nadella is an avid runner, prolific reader and passionate about cricket. Vashee says they exchange text messages along the lines of: “Have you seen the collapse of the Indian cricket team?” About Nadella’s interest in music, Bodas says, “He loves ghazals, and he has a lot of books on ghazals.” Nadella and his wife Anupama are known to serve exceptional Hyderabadi cuisine at home, mostly cooked by Anupama, but with Nadella often pitching in. They have a teenaged special needs son and two younger daughters.
As he prepares to lead the world’s biggest software maker, with over 100,000 employees worldwide—and 30,000 more coming from Nokia’s mobile devices division acquired in 2013 — Nadella’s toughest challenges may still be ahead of him. But making it to the top job at Microsoft is a huge feat in itself. “To use a baseball analogy, Satya has hit one out of the park,” says Sunil Kumar. To use a phrase the ghazal aficionado might appreciate more: Wah, wah.
Follow the writer on Twitter @IndiraKannan140