Microsoft has appointed Pavan Davuluri as the new head of Windows and Surface. Davuluri is an alumnus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He is taking over from his predecessor Panos Panay, who left Microsoft last year to join Amazon. Previously, Microsoft had separate heads for the Windows and Surface departments. Davuluri used to lead the Surface silicon work. With his promotion, he will now oversee both Windows and Surface.
Davuluri has been with Microsoft for over 23 years. After completing his postgraduate studies at the University of Maryland, he joined Microsoft as a Reliability Component Manager. He also served as Corporate Vice President for almost three years. His appointment adds to the growing list of Indian-origin leaders at major US tech firms like Google and Microsoft.
In an internal communication, Microsoft’s Rajesh Jha announced Davuluri’s new role. He mentioned that this unified leadership will enable a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences and devices spanning Windows client and cloud in this AI era. He said, “Will enable us to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era. As part of this change, we are bringing together the Windows Experiences and Windows + Devices teams as a core part of the Experiences + Devices (E+D) division.”
As part of the reorganization, the Windows Experiences and Windows + Devices teams will join the Experiences + Devices division led by Davuluri. Shilpa Ranganathan and Jeff Johnson’s teams will now report to Davuluri directly. The Windows team will continue working closely with Microsoft’s AI team. Davuluri’s promotion comes at a time when Microsoft is emphasizing its AI capabilities. Last week, former DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman was appointed head of Microsoft AI. The company also announced that Mikhail Parakhin, head of advertising and web services including Bing and Edge, will join Microsoft AI.
