Microsoft revamps top management, four key executives leave

New York, June 18
Four top executives are leaving tech giant Microsoft, including former Clinton advisor Mark Penn and ex-director of Nokia Stephen Elop, in a leadership shuffle announced by the firm's CEO Satya Nadella, Efe news agency reported.

The leadership changes constitute the biggest switch so far during Nadella's tenure at the helm of Microsoft, which will be divided into three big departments -- "Windows and devices," to be headed by Terry Myerson, "Cloud and enterprise", which will be overseen by Scott Guthrie, and "Applications and services", with Qi Lu as its chief.

In an email to company employees on Wednesday to inform them of the changes in top personnel, Nadella said the larger changes in the firm's structure required Microsoft to examine its leadership and the result was that several veteran team leaders will be leaving the company.

According to Nadella, Penn, who worked on both Bill and Hillary Clinton's election campaigns, had announced last September his intention to leave the company to form his own investment fund.

With regard to Elop, whose duties fell in the area that Myerson now occupies, the Microsoft chief said that they had come to a joint decision and he lamented the loss of leadership his departure meant for the company.

Joining Penn and Elop in their move out the door are Eric Rudder, who had been with the firm for more than 25 years, and Kirill Tatarinov, under whose direction the firm's Dynamics business grew into a $2-billion operation.

After the announcement of the changes, shares of Microsoft -- one of the 30 Dow Jones components -- fell 0.2 percent on the Nasdaq exchange.