Microsoft Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Consumer Business Yusuf Mehdi is leaving Microsoft after 35 years with the company. He announced the decision in an internal memo released on Thursday and said he will officially leave next year. He will continue to lead marketing efforts for Windows, Copilot for consumers, and the Microsoft 365 consumer business until 2027.
In the memo, Mahdi said that in making this decision, his top priority was to allow enough time and space for the long-term success of the team and company. "We are at an extremely critical moment in the evolution of Microsoft and our customers," he said. According to "GeekWire", he is currently working with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Satya Nadella) and chief marketing officer Takeshi Numoto (Takeshi Numoto) to develop a transition plan, but the company has not yet announced a successor. Mahdi is also the latest in a string of senior executives to announce their departure from Microsoft.
In March of this year, Rajesh Jha, former executive vice president of Microsoft’s Experience and Devices Group, announced that he would retire after more than 35 years of service at the company. Jia's departure has promoted the further flattening of Microsoft's high-level architecture in multiple core business lines such as Windows, Office, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. Previously, Microsoft also experienced a round of high-level turmoil. Many senior executives who had long been at the helm of key product lines chose to leave the company, including the leader in charge of experience and devices and the head of the Xbox business.
Mehdi's career almost parallels Microsoft's modern history. He joined Microsoft as an intern in the 1990s and was involved in the early releases of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, as well as responsible for the marketing of Internet Explorer. He then spent more than 10 years at Microsoft's search and online business unit, where he participated in and promoted the launch of the Bing search engine. In terms of consumer hardware and operating systems, Mehdi also plays an important role and has participated in the launch of products such as Xbox One, Windows 10 and Copilot Plus PC. In recent years, he has frequently appeared in the public eye as the "spokesperson" of Microsoft's consumer business.
When looking back on his career at Microsoft, Mehdi said that he was fortunate to have experienced and participated in many decisive technological turning points. “I’ve been at the forefront of change, from the rise of Windows and the early days of the internet, to search, games, devices, and now one of the most profound platform transformations – artificial intelligence,” he said. In his view, leaving Microsoft was an "exciting but extremely difficult decision" because Microsoft was far more than just a workplace for him, "it was also the canvas that carried my lifelong career creation."