Microsoft has appointed Pavan Davuluri as the new head of Windows and Surface, alongside Rajesh Jha, who will oversee software and hardware integration.
Microsoft’s Strategic Leadership Transformation
The last six months or so have seen a significant management transition at Microsoft. The Surface and Windows team was left empty after Panos Panay left in 2023 to join competitor Amazon. Satya Nadella and company have now chosen a new leader to take over.
Today, Microsoft named Pavan Davuluri as its new head of Windows and Surface. Following the unexpected departure of Panos Panay to Amazon in the previous year, Microsoft divided the Windows and Surface divisions into two distinct leaders. Mikhail Parakhin headed a newly formed team focused on Windows and online experiences, while Davuluri took over as head of the Surface silicon and device division. Davuluri will now be in charge of both Windows and Surface because Parakhin has “decided to explore new roles.” The memo also mentions Microsoft’s move to combine the Windows and Surface teams, which may enable the business to concentrate on bringing products that are in line with its design and philosophy and merge software and hardware.
Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s head of experiences and devices, provided an internal memo to The Verge detailing the new Windows organization. Microsoft is now reuniting its teams for devices and Windows. In the age of AI, Jha says, “This will allow us to take an integrated approach to developing silicon, systems, experiences, and devices which extend Windows client and cloud.”
The New WINDOWS And MICROSOFT SURFACE Head PAVAN DAVULURI: WHO IS HE?
Rajesh Jha is the direct boss of Microsoft’s Windows and Surface team, which is currently led by Pavan Davuluri. Davuluri has over 23 years of experience working at Microsoft, where he played a key role in the company’s partnership with AMD and Qualcomm to create customized Surface processors. Before joining Microsoft, Davuluri completed his Master of Science at the University of Maryland after receiving his degree from IIT Madras and moving to the US permanently. Davuluri began his employment with Microsoft in 2001 as a Reliability Component Manager, and by 2005, he held the position of General Manager for the Surface team, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In October 2023, he received even more recognition when he was appointed Corporate Vice President of the Windows + Devices team, which he will now lead from the top. Davuluri’s 23 years of experience at Microsoft, along with his status as a key member of the current team, enable him to take over with ease and free Nadella and the company to focus on developing future software and products.
Microsoft’s AI Leadership Restructuring and Strategic Talent Acquisition
Mustafa Suleyman, the former CEO of Inflection AI and co-founder of Google DeepMind, has joined Microsoft as the CEO of a new AI team, and the Windows shuffle happened a few days later on. Additionally, Microsoft hired several Inflection AI staff members, including Karén Simonyan, the co-founder and current chief scientist of Microsoft AI. Thus, the majority of Inflection’s employees are joining Microsoft AI in a move that appears as a talent acquisition that carefully avoids regulatory scrutiny up front.
Suleyman has taken on the role of CEO of Microsoft AI, a newly formed division responsible for managing the company’s AI products aimed at consumers, such as Edge, Bing, and Copilot. Suleyman works directly under Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Although it appears that Suleyman was supposed to oversee Mikhail Parakhin, that is no longer the case.