Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer Panos Panay is Leaving Microsoft

Panos Panay, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Microsoft is leaving the company after almost 20 years (via The Verge). In an email sent to employees today, Rajesh Jha, EVP of Experiences and Devices announced some management changes and a transition period, and the company also plans to hold an AMA session in the coming days.

After joining Microsoft back in 2004, Panay became the face of Microsoft’s Surface business after the company launched the original Surface RT back in 2012. In 2018, Panay was promoted to Chief Product Officer, and his new role led him to oversee the development of Windows.

In some way, Panay’s career at Microsoft bears some similarities with Jony Ive’s trajectory at Apple. Ive used to embody product design at Apple before he became the company’s Chief Design Officer, taking responsibility for the design of iOS and macOS along the way. Ive later left Apple in 2019 to launch his own design firm, keeping Apple as a customer.

With Panay leaving Microsoft, Pavan Davulury will now lead Windows planning and release management. Yusuf Mehdi will lead the Windows and Surface businesses, while Mikhail Parakhin will head a new WIndows and Web Experiences team. “Our commitment to Surface and MR remains unchanged,” Jha emphasized.

The timing for this announcement is quite surprising as Microsoft will hold a special event this Thursday, September 21, where the company is expected to announce new Surface devices. Anyway, you can find the full email from Rajesh Jha below:

Team,

After nearly 20 years at the company, Panos Panay has decided to leave Microsoft. Panos has had an incredible impact on our products and culture as well as the broader devices ecosystem. Under Panos’ leadership, the team created the iconic Surface brand with loved products. More recently, as the leader of Windows, the team has brought amazing services and experiences to hundreds of millions with Windows 11 on innovative devices including those from our OEM partners. He will be missed, and I am personally very grateful for his many contributions over the years. Please join me in wishing him well.

Moving forward, we will double down on our strategy. These changes will be effective immediately with Panos’ help in the transition.

Build silicon, systems and devices that span Windows, client and cloud for an AI world. This team will be led by Pavan Davuluri, who will report directly to me. Brett Ostrum, Nino Storniolo, Linda Averett, Ken Pan, Ralf Groene, Aidan Marcuss, Carlos Picoto, Stevie Bathiche, Robin Seiler, Ruben Caballero and Anuj Gosalia will move to report to Pavan with their teams intact. Windows planning and release management will continue to be in this team. Our commitment to Surface and MR remains unchanged.

Build experiences that blend web, services and Windows for an AI world. To this end, Shilpa Ranganathan, Jeff Johnson and Ali Akgun will directly report to Mikhail Parakhin and form a new Windows and Web Experiences Team, moving with their teams intact.

Yusuf Mehdi will take on the responsibility of leading the Windows and Surface businesses with our OEM and Retail partners.

In addition, Charles Simonyi, Terri Chudzik and Erin Kolb will join the E+D management teams and Ralf Groene and Mike Davidson will work together on the best alignment on design teams.

We will set up time for an AMA in the coming days to answer questions. Let’s continue to stay focused on executing on our existing plans. Thank you for all that you do, and the impact that you have for our customers and partners.

Best,

Rajesh

Do you think Panay’s departure marks the end of an era for Microsoft? Sound off in the comments below.