Satya Narayana Nadella (; born 19 August 1967) is an Indian-born American business executive who is the chairman and

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

(CEO) of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, succeeding

Steve Ballmer Steven Anthony Ballmer (; March 24, 1956) is an American businessman and investor who served as chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014. He is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He i ...

in 2014 as CEO and John W. Thompson in 2021 as chairman. 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 on 19 August 1967 in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

into a Telugu

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

family. His mother Prabhavati was a

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

lecturer. His father, Bukkapuram Nadella Yugandhar, was an

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the Public administration, administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. The IAS is one of the three All India Services along with the Indian Police Service (IPS) and the Indian ...

officer of the 1962 batch. Yugandhar hailed from Bukkapuram in Anantapur district of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

; his own father had migrated to Bukkapuram from Nadella village in Guntur district (present-day

Palnadu district Palnadu district is a district in coastal Andhra Region in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. With Narasaraopet as its administrative headquarters, it was formed on 4 April 2022 to become one of the resultant twenty-six districts The distric ...

) of Andhra Pradesh. Nadella attended the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet before receiving a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the Manipal Institute of Technology in

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

in 1988. He then traveled to the United States to study for an MS in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, receiving his degree in 1990. He received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 1997.

Career

Sun Microsystems

Nadella worked at

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

as a member of its technology staff before joining Microsoft in 1992.

Microsoft

1992–2014

At Microsoft, Nadella has led major projects that included the company's move to

cloud computing Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

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 $19billion Server and Tools Business and led a transformation of the company's business and technology culture from client services to

cloud infrastructure Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to ISO. Essential characteristics ...

and services. He has been credited for helping bring Microsoft's database,

Windows Server Windows Server (formerly Windows NT Server) is a brand name for Server (computing), server-oriented releases of the Windows NT operating system (OS) that have been developed by Microsoft since 1993. The first release under this brand name i ...

and developer tools to its Azure cloud. The revenue from Cloud Services grew to $20.3billion in June 2013 from $16.6billion when he took over in 2011. He received $84.5million in 2016 pay. In 2013, Nadella's base salary was reportedly $669,167. Including stock bonuses, the total compensation stood at around $7.6million. Previous positions held by Nadella include: * President of the Server & Tools Division (9 February 2011 – February 2014) * Senior Vice-president of Research and Development for the Online Services Division (March 2007 – February 2011) * Vice-president of the Business Division * Corporate Vice-president of Business Solutions and Search & Advertising Platform Group * Executive Vice-president of Cloud and Enterprise group

Chief executive officer (2014–present)

On 4 February 2014, Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft, the third CEO in the company's history, following

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American businessman and philanthropist. A pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, he co-founded the software company Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend ...

and

. 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." Microsoft_Linux

Nadella's tenure at Microsoft has emphasized working with companies and technologies with which Microsoft also competes, including

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

, Salesforce,

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, and

Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropbox w ...

. In contrast to previous Microsoft campaigns against the

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

operating system, Nadella proclaimed that "Microsoft ❤️ Linux", and Microsoft joined the

Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit organization established in 2000 to support Linux development and open-source software projects. Background The Linux Foundation started as Open Source Development Labs in 2000 to standardize and prom ...

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 was of Mojang, a Swedish game company best known for the computer game ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a 2011 sandbox game developed and published by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. Originally created by Markus Persson, Markus "Notch" Persson using the Java (programming language), Java programming language, the ...

'', for $2.5 billion. He followed that by purchasing Xamarin for an undisclosed amount. He oversaw the purchase of professional network

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented Social networking service, social network. It was launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and Eric Ly. Since December 2016, LinkedIn has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. ...

in 2016 for $26.2 billion. On 26 October 2018,

acquired

GitHub GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...

for US$7.5 billion. As of November 2023, Microsoft stock had increased nearly tenfold since Nadella became CEO in 2014, with a 27% annual growth rate, ending a 14-year period of near zero growth. In 2024, Nadella's compensation from Microsoft totaled $79.1 million, an increase of 63% over his 2023 compensation of $48.5 million.

Sports

Nadella, Soma Somasegar, Samir Bodas, Ashok Krishnamurthi, Sanjay Parthasarathy, and the GMR Group purchased the Seattle Orcas cricket team which is a part of 2023 Major League Cricket season.

Boards and committees

* Board of Directors,

Starbucks Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational List of coffeehouse chains, chain of coffeehouses and Starbucks Reserve, roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gor ...

(2017–2024) * Board of Trustees, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center * Board of Trustees,

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

* Chairman, The Business Council (2021 to 2022)

Awards and recognition

In 2018 and 2024, Nadella was a ''Time'' 100 honoree. In 2019, he was named ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' 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. In 2022, the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

awarded Nadella the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in India. Nadella was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

in January 2024.

Personal life

In 1992, Nadella married Anupama Priyadarshini, the daughter of his father's

(IAS) batchmate. Both Nadella and Anupama are the only children from their parents. She was his junior at Manipal pursuing a B.Arch in the Faculty of Architecture. The couple have three children, a son (deceased) and two daughters, and live in Clyde Hill and

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside (King County, Washington), Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area, and the f ...

. His son Zain was a legally blind

quadriplegic Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of Motor control, motor and/or Sense, sensory function in the Cervical vertebrae, cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weak ...

with

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, spasticity, stiff muscles, Paresis, weak muscles, and tremors. There may b ...

. Zain died in February 2022, at the age of 26. According to Nadella, being the father of a child with special needs was a turning point in his life. Nadella is an avid reader of American and Indian poetry and enjoys

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

, having played on his school team. He credits cricket for improving his leadership skills. Nadella and his wife Anupama are part of the ownership group of

Seattle Sounders FC Seattle Sounders FC is an American professional association football, soccer club based in Seattle. The Sounders compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The club was established on ...

, a

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

club. In 2017, Nadella published a book titled '' Hit Refresh,'' exploring his life and career at Microsoft. He announced that the profits from the book would go to Microsoft Philanthropies and through that to

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

Publications

* ''Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone'' (2017). (audiobook )

References

External links

*
Profile
on ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Nadella, Satya Microsoft employees 1967 births Living people Telugu people Engineers from Andhra Pradesh Businesspeople in software University of Chicago alumni Manipal Academy of Higher Education alumni American chief executives Indian chief executives Indian emigrants to the United States University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee alumni Businesspeople from Hyderabad, India University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni American technology chief executives 20th-century Indian engineers 21st-century Indian engineers People from Clyde Hill, Washington People from Bellevue, Washington Recipients of Pravasi Bharatiya Samman 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American people of Indian descent American computer businesspeople American chief executives of Fortune 500 companies Chief executives in the technology industry Directors of Starbucks People from Andhra Pradesh Businesspeople from Telangana People from Hyderabad, India American people of Telugu descent Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in trade and industry