Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced that longtime executive Amy Coleman will replace Kathleen Hogan as the company’s chief people officer, as the tech giant rethinks its performance review process.
Hogan, who has served as Microsoft’s chief people officer for over a decade, will transition to a newly created role as executive vice president of the “Office of Strategy and Transformation,” reporting directly to Nadella.
“It is hard to overstate the impact Kathleen has had on Microsoft as Chief People Officer,” Nadella wrote in an email to employees. “Over the past 10+ years, she has led our cultural transformation, as we embraced a growth mindset, positioning us to seize new opportunities with agility and attract and retain world-class talent.”
The leadership change comes as Microsoft, which employs approximately 228,000 people globally, reportedly fired nearly 2,000 employees deemed low-performers in January and February while reviewing its performance management process.
Coleman, who has been with Microsoft for more than 25 years across two stints, most recently served as corporate vice president for human resources and corporate functions. Nadella praised her as “a trusted advisor” who has “orchestrated many cross-company workstreams as we evolved our culture.”
During her tenure, Hogan helped implement significant changes to Microsoft’s workplace culture, emphasizing the concept of a “growth mindset” over a “fixed mindset.” In a 2019 interview, she noted, “We came up with some big symbolic changes to show that we really were serious about driving culture change, from changing the performance-review system to changing our all-hands company meeting, to our monthly Q&A with the employees.”
The move reflects what Nadella described as “times of great change” requiring adaptation and transformation, particularly in the AI era.
Hogan moves to strategy role, Coleman takes HR: Nadella’s Full Email to Employees
Subject: Senior Leadership Update
As we’ve seen time and again throughout our 50-year history, times of great change for the world and for our industry require us to have a mindset that enables us to continually adapt and transform ourselves. There’s no question that we are at the forefront of another such moment, with the rapid changes across every industry and business function in this AI era.
This means we must have the right product portfolio, the right business models, attract and retain top talent, and optimize our processes to meet changing customer expectations and succeed in the marketplace.
With this context, I’ve asked Kathleen Hogan to transition to a new role focused on defining our overarching corporate strategy and structure and leading our continuous transformation as a company. Kathleen will assume a new role as EVP, Office of Strategy and Transformation, reporting to me.
It is hard to overstate the impact Kathleen has had on Microsoft as Chief People Officer. Over the past 10+ years, she has led our cultural transformation, as we embraced a growth mindset, positioning us to seize new opportunities with agility and attract and retain world-class talent. She is recognized externally as a consequential HR leader transforming culture and the world of work.
Her more than 20-year tenure at Microsoft, including leading our global services business, paired with her prior experience as a McKinsey partner in Silicon Valley, and a development manager at Oracle, makes her uniquely suited to lead this work as we accelerate our pace of change across our people, processes, and portfolio. Kathleen will work across the SLT as we chart this next phase of our transformation, which requires both interpreting the outside and redefining the inside.
Kathleen and I have been discussing this transition and succession planning for some time, and we both agree this is the critical juncture to apply new focus and intention to this work.
With this transition, I’m very pleased to share that Amy Coleman will assume the role of EVP, Chief People Officer, leading our HR organization. She joins the senior leadership team reporting to me.
Amy has led HR for our corporate functions across the company for the past six years, following various HR roles partnering across engineering, sales, marketing, and business development spanning 25 years. In that time, she has been a trusted advisor to both Kathleen and to me as she orchestrated many cross-company workstreams as we evolved our culture, improved our employee engagement model, established our employee relations team, and drove enterprise crisis response for our people. Amy’s commitment to operational excellence and high performance will be key in driving our continued success, and I’m confident in the perspective, expertise, and thoughtful approach she’ll bring as we navigate the next phase of our journey.
Please join me in congratulating Kathleen and Amy on their new roles.
Satya