Microsoft Names LinkedIn Executive to Tech Chief Role

By Jay Greene 

Microsoft Corp. named Kevin Scott chief technology officer reporting directly to Satya Nadella, continuing the chief executive's strategy of bringing outside perspective into the software giant's highest ranks.

Mr. Scott is senior vice president of infrastructure at LinkedIn Corp., which Microsoft acquired for $26.2 billion last month. He will retain that job and title.

Microsoft described his new role as helping to ensure the company's Office productivity suite and Dynamics customer relationship management product work smoothly with LinkedIn's services. Mr. Scott wasn't available for comment, Microsoft said.

Since becoming CEO nearly three years ago, Mr. Nadella has elevated executives from acquired companies to high-ranking jobs, in part to help Microsoft compete in newer businesses such as social networking, where it has struggled. Mr. Nadella also has installed new hires in top posts in the Office and cloud-computing divisions.

Mr. Scott will serve, along with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, on Microsoft's senior leadership team, a group of 15 top executives, including Mr. Nadella, who set corporate strategy.

Ray Ozzie served as chief technical officer -- a slightly different title than Mr. Scott's -- in 2005 and 2006, after Microsoft acquired his startup Groove Networks Inc. The job has been vacant since Mr. Ozzie left the post in 2006, when he became chief software architect, a post co-founder Bill Gates held before retiring. Earlier, Nathan Myhrvold, who left the company in 1999, served as chief technology officer.

Those executives were seen as software visionaries, whose roles were to guide senior leadership on emerging trends where the company needed to allocate resources.

Mr. Scott's role is more circumscribed. In a statement, Mr. Nadella said Mr. Scott's "first area of focus is to bring together" LinkedIn and Microsoft's cloud-computing products and services for professionals.

Microsoft said Mr. Scott will remain active at LinkedIn as a member of the company's executive-management team. At LinkedIn, he has been responsible for engineering all of the company's products.

Before joining LinkedIn in 2011, he served as senior engineering director at Google Inc. He took that job after Google acquired mobile-advertising company AdMob Inc., where Mr. Scott served as vice president of engineering and operations.

Mr. Scott has also been an adviser to several Silicon Valley startups, including Box Inc. and Pinterest Inc.

Write to Jay Greene at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 24, 2017 14:52 ET (19:52 GMT)

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