Chris Capossela (born 1969) is

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

Chief Marketing Officer A chief marketing officer (CMO), also called a global marketing officer or marketing director, or chief brand officer, is a corporate executive responsible for managing marketing activities in an organization. Whilst historically these titles may ...

and Executive Vice President of Consumer Business. Capossela's career at Microsoft includes roles as Bill Gates' speech assistant, Corporate Vice President of the Consumer Channels Group and marketing leadership of the company's

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a ma ...

group. He also serves as Board Chair of the nonprofit

Worldreader Worldreader is a 501(c)(3) global nonprofit organization that provides people in the developing world with free access to a library of digital books via e-readers and mobile phones. Since 2010, over 13.3 million people across 62 countries have re ...

Education and career

Capossela graduated from Harvard University in 1991 with a B.A. in economics. He joined Microsoft immediately after graduating, moving from his hometown of Boston to Seattle, WA. In 1997, Capossela was selected for a two-year assignment as Speech Assistant to Microsoft founder Bill Gates. In 1998, Capossela was doing a demo on stage with

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

at the

COMDEX COMDEX (an abbreviation of COMputer Dealers' EXhibition) was a computer expo trade show held in the Las Vegas Valley of Nevada, United States, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually ...

Conference when the computer became unresponsive and displayed the Blue Screen of Death. In 1999, Capossela relocated to Paris to lead business operations for Microsoft's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, before returning to Redmond in 2001 to assume leadership of

Microsoft Project Microsoft Project is a project management software product, developed and sold by Microsoft. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a schedule, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and anal ...

. Capossela was promoted to Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft Office division in 2003, a role he held until 2011, when he took on leadership of Microsoft's Consumer Channels Group. In 2014, Microsoft CEO

Satya Nadella Satya Narayana Nadella (, ; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-American business executive. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft, succeeding Steve Ballmer in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. Before becoming CEO ...

promoted Capossela to Chief Marketing Officer, overseeing marketing across consumer and commercial audiences for all Microsoft services and products, corporate communications, brand, advertising and research. Capossela took over the role from his predecessor

Mich Mathews Mich Mathews was the senior vice president for Microsoft's Central Marketing Group. She oversaw the company's global marketing function, including a diverse set of businesses and audiences. Mathews has been featured in the Newsweek article "10 Powe ...

. In 2016, Microsoft consolidated its marketing and consumer sales organizations into the Marketing and Consumer Business group, adding business growth for consumer and device sales, Microsoft Advertising business and Microsoft Stores to Capossela's responsibilities.

Personal life

Capossela was born and raised in Boston's North End. He worked alongside his two brothers, mother and father at his family's Italian restaurant. His family lived in an apartment above the restaurant. Capossela began attending Harvard in nearby Cambridge, MA, in 1987. Capossela, his wife and two daughters live in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

. Capossela is a board member for a 501(c)(3) global non-profit called

, an organization that provides people in the developing world with free access to a library of digital books via e-readers and mobile phones.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Capossela, Chris 1969 births Living people Chief marketing officers 21st-century American businesspeople Harvard College alumni Businesspeople from Boston American technology executives Microsoft employees Businesspeople from Seattle