Stephen Elop leaves Microsoft in shake-up

CEO Stephen Elop

Ex-Nokia CEO Stephen Elop will be leaving Microsoft as part of its management reshuffle, alongside two other senior executives.

Elop joined Microsoft as part of the 4.6 billion Nokia acquisition he helped engineer last year, claiming the title of executive vice president of the Devices and Services group.

However, he will now be replaced by Terry Myerson, executive VP of Operating Systems, who will also run the company's new Windows and Devices Group.

Executive vice president Scott Guthrie will continue to lead the Cloud and Enterprise (C+E) team, building on the company's successes and introducing new enterprise tools in data and analytics.

"As a part of this announcement, the company will move the Dynamics development teams to the C+E team, enabling the company to accelerate ERP and CRM work and bring it into the mainstream C+E engineering and innovation efforts," Microsoft said in a blog statement.

Qi Lu will also keep his role as leader of the Applications and Services Group (ASG), part of which will be introducing integrated productivity services across devices and across business and personal lives.

Microsoft explained that Stephen Elop, Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder will all leave Microsoft after a "designated transition period". Chief Insights Officer Mark Penn will also be leaving Microsoft, although the company said that is unrelated to the management shake-up and he has decided to pursue "other opportunities".

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft said: "We are aligning our engineering efforts and capabilities to deliver on our strategy and, in particular, our three core ambitions. This change will enable us to deliver better products and services that our customers love at a more rapid pace."

Clare Hopping
Freelance writer

Clare is the founder of Blue Cactus Digital, a digital marketing company that helps ethical and sustainability-focused businesses grow their customer base.

Prior to becoming a marketer, Clare was a journalist, working at a range of mobile device-focused outlets including Know Your Mobile before moving into freelance life.

As a freelance writer, she drew on her expertise in mobility to write features and guides for ITPro, as well as regularly writing news stories on a wide range of topics.