New Enterprise Sales and Marketing, Consumer Leaders

New executives will lead Microsoft’s sales and marketing efforts for governments, for Windows Server and other platform servers, and for China. The company’s mobile phone unit has also picked up a new sales and marketing head as Nokia launches significant new devices, and Microsoft’s entertainment arm has several new senior business and technical managers.

This article summarizes executive changes at the corporate vice president level and above since Jan. 2012. For a view of Microsoft’s organization as of Feb. 2012, see the online version of the Directions on Microsoft OrgChart.

New Marketing Heads for Public Sector, Server Platform

Microsoft’s marketing to government will be led by a new executive from Cisco, while an Office veteran takes over marketing for Windows Server and other platform and developer products.

Laura Ipsen has been hired as corporate vice president, Worldwide Public Sector. She will lead sales and marketing to governments, public healthcare agencies, and other public sector organizations. Ipsen comes to Microsoft from Cisco, where she managed policy and government affairs for 13 years before moving to a unit focused on smart power grids. She has previously worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Acer, and Hitachi Data Systems, and currently serves on the board of Monsanto. Ipsen replaces Linda Zecher, who left Microsoft in 2011 to become CEO of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Key priorities for Ipsen will probably be managing Microsoft’s cloud strategy for government, which has been targeted by competitors such as Google, and dealing with a wave of budget tightening in the European Union, one of the company’s largest markets. Ipsen will report to Susan Hauser, corporate vice president of the Worldwide Enterprise and Partner Group.