Customer Support Organization Shifts

A shift in customer service management, a new leader for OEM sales, and an expanded large-account sales strategy unit headline recent changes to Microsoft’s corporate organization. Many changes reflect continued efforts to beef up sales to large customers and move into more proactive support and services. In addition, the team in charge of Microsoft’s e-mail server, Exchange, has been merged with the team currently overseeing the company’s instant messaging (IM) and presence platform, Live Communications Server.

(For an overview of changes to Microsoft’s support and sales organizations, see the illustration “Support and Sales Changes, Feb. 2005“.)

This report outlines recent changes at the vice-presidential level and above; for the latest details, see the Mar. 2006 Directions on Microsoft OrgChart.

Services and Support: Bigger Role for Hogan

Organizational changes in the Worldwide Services and IT organization affect the following executives:

Kathleen Hogan has taken over responsibility for much of Microsoft’s Customer Service and Support (CSS) organization from its longtime leader, Vice President Lori Moore. Now vice president of Customer Support and Customer Partner Experience, Hogan will add oversight of all of the regional customer support teams, Premier Support, and consumer support to the support strategy initiatives she supervised previously. She will report to Worldwide Services Vice President Rick Devenuti instead of Chief Operating Officer (COO) Kevin Turner. Hogan, formerly of the management consulting firm McKinsey and Company, joined Microsoft in 2003 to supervise customer and partner satisfaction initiatives, which included the launch of an employee bonus program tied to customer and partner satisfaction scores.