Satya Nadella has been named as Microsoft's new CEO, the company officially announced on Tuesday. Nadella has worked for Microsoft for 22 years, and was most recently the executive vice president of the company's cloud and enterprise group.
"Satya will be a great CEO, and I am pumped for the future of Microsoft," outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer said in an email to Microsoft employees on Tuesday. "He has a remarkable ability to see what's going on in the market, to sense opportunity, and to really understand how we come together at Microsoft to execute against those opportunities in a collaborative way."
"Many companies aspire to change the world," Nadella said in an email to the company on Tuesday. "But very few have all the elements required: talent, resources, and perseverance. Microsoft has proven that it has all three in abundance. And as the new CEO, I can’t ask for a better foundation."
Nadella wants to "prioritize innovation" and empower Microsoft's users to "do more," he says in the email.
Nadella is Microsoft's third CEO in the company's history, following Ballmer and founder Bill Gates. Nadella isn't the only one with a new role in the company. Gates will leave his post as the chairman of the board of directors and take on a new position as technology advisor, the company announced Tuesday. The lead independent director of the board of directors, John Thompson, will replace Gates as chairman.
Both Businessweek and Re/code reported last week that Nadella would like be named the company's next chief executive.
2013 was a tough year for Microsoft. The company sold so few of its tablet, the Surface RT, that it had to make a $900 million writeoff on unsold inventory in July. Around that same time, Microsoft's stock also fell 10 percent.