Microsoft’s Chief Executive Satya Nadella Becomes Chairman of the Board

Tech giant Microsoft announced this week that the company’s CEO Satya Nadella is becoming the chair of the company’s board.

Nadella, who has been running Microsoft for the past seven years, is taking over the chairperson seat from former Symantec CEO and independent director John Thompson.

Thompson had joined Microsoft’s board in 2012 and replaced Bill Gates as Microsoft’s chair in 2014. This was the same day Nadella replaced Steve Ballmer as the Microsoft CEO.

The move follows a unanimous vote of the software company’s board.

“In this role, Nadella will lead the work to set the agenda for the board, leveraging his deep understanding of the business to elevate the right strategic opportunities and identify key risks and mitigation approaches for the board’s review,” Microsoft stated.

The company continued, “As lead independent director, Thompson will retain significant authority including providing input on behalf of the independent directors on board agendas, calling meetings of the independent directors, setting agendas for executive sessions, and leading performance evaluations of the CEO.”

While Nadella has been leader of the company, Microsoft had regained the title of world’s most valuable public company at one point. Today it stands as the second most valuable, coming behind Apple.

“The board credits Mr. Nadella for his tremendous progress driving cultural change across the organization, especially given the unprecedented impact of Covid-19 on our business and our people,” Microsoft said.

Nadella has over 1.6 million shares of the company’s stock.

The board also declared a quarterly dividend of $0.56 per share. The dividend is payable Sept. 9, 2021, to shareholders of record on Aug. 19, 2021. The ex-dividend date will be Aug. 18, 2021.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.