Satya Nadella – Delivering a Growth Mindset

Satya Nadella, in full Satya Narayana Nadella, (born August 19, 1967, Hyderabad, India), Indian-born business executive who was CEO of the computer software company Microsoft. He ushered the company into a new era of openness and innovation, growing Microsoft’s cloud computing business, promoting cross-platform collaboration and overseeing the launch of inventive products.

By 1999 he had been named vice president of the Microsoft bCentral small-business service, and two years later he became corporate vice president of Microsoft Business Solutions. In 2007 he was elevated to senior vice president of research and development for the company’s online services division, and he later served (2011–13) as president of Microsoft’s server and tools business, which annually generated some $19 billion in revenue.

Nadella was also executive vice president in charge of the company’s cloud computing platform, which provided the infrastructure for such Microsoft offerings as the online search engine Bing, the Xbox Live broadband gaming network, and the Office 365 subscription-based services.

“Our industry does not respect tradition. What it respects is innovation.” – Satya Nadella

Microsoft is now the second-most valuable company in the S&P 500 behind Apple and, in late June, closed with a market capitalization north of $2 trillion for the first time. As of Wednesday, the Redmond, Washington-based company was worth $2.1 trillion.

Nadella, who previously was the firm’s top cloud computing executive, owns more than 1.6 million shares of Microsoft, according to FactSet, making him one of the company’s largest individual shareholders. His stake was worth more than $450 million based on Wednesday’s all-time high price.