Dona Sarkar moving on from leading the Windows Insider program

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Dona Sarkar is moving on from leading the Windows Insider program after three years.

What you need to know

  • Dona Sarkar is moving on from leading the Windows Insider program.
  • Sarkar led the program for three years.
  • Sarkar is moving over to the MS Developer Relations Azure Advocates team.

Dona Sarkar is moving on from leading the Windows Insider team. Sarkar led the team for the last three years, overseeing several major updates to the operating system. Sarkar has also made several strides to increase the community of Windows Insiders.

Microsoft did not name an immediate successor to Sarkar in the blog post announcing the move. The blog post by Eran Megiddo, Corporate Vice President of Windows and Education, states that the search for Sarkar's replacement is ongoing.

Currently, we are conducting a search for a new leader of the Windows Insider Program. In the meantime, I and the Insider crew (including Brandon, Jennifer, Blair, Jason, Vivek, Eddie) look forward to continuing to engage with you each week as we ship new builds. And as we've done since the beginning of our program, we'll continue to evolve to best meet the needs of this fantastic community.

Sarkar shared the news on Twitter, adding that she is moving to the Microsoft Developer Relations Azure Advocates team. There, she'll lead advocacy for the Power Platform and tech skilling.

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Sarkar, known in and outside of Microsoft as the Chief Ninja Cat of the Windows Insider Program, focused heavily on the community aspect of the Windows Insider Program, in addition to the team's efforts to improve Windows 10.

Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott

Sean Endicott is the news writer for Windows Central. If it runs Windows, is made by Microsoft, or has anything to do with either, he's on it. Sean's been with Windows Central since 2017 and is also our resident app expert. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com.
21 Comments
  • Congrats Dona is the windows insider program going to continue? If so where to I apply to lead it :-)
  • The Insider program was a disaster under her.
  • Just curious, a disaster in what way that wasn't disclosed during the point just before signing up?
  • Well, the idea of the Insider program (the way I understand it) was to provide feedback to Microsoft to help improving non-Insider releases of Windows. That had failed rather spectacularly last fall and failure was well documented. However, if you view the Insider program as the way for Microsoft to provide pre-release software to those who want to run it, your point is absolutely correct -- they were told that the software will be broken and it was -- there is nothing to complain about.
  • You're just talking nonsense, please spare us trolling comments.
  • I'd love to say otherwise, but I won't miss her. I'm sure she's a very nice person but under her, the Insider Program lost its way a bit and became too much about ninja cats and hackathons to "save the world", which I guess are fine, but really not what I feel the WIP should be about. Hopefully we'll see it return to become more technically oriented as it was under Gabe.
  • I'd like to add that I still wish her the best for her new role, of course.
  • I would like to see @JenMsft following her.
  • I don't like to criticise, but the communication has been very poor under her leadership and mistakes were numerous.
  • What does she do anyway? Besides promote insider events and take pictures of herself? At least Gabe was interested in Windows 10.
  • she unites the masses under the hegemony of the ninja cat and she writes books and designs clothes and takes pictures of herself.
  • She's so beautiful.. Not surprised at all. I wish her the best.
  • get a wife. and a life".."
  • Please take the stupid ninja cat with you.
  • The Insider program is such a bullshit and bad idea. Hopefully, they end it one day.
  • Bring somebody like Gabe Aul and put the Windows Insiders program back on its tracks!
  • It's interesting to read the comments here. Seems like a lot of people didn't like how she ran the Windows Insider program.
  • meh... perhaps her new position will afford her more time to write more books and pursue her fashion line...
  • Windows Insider hs been a disaster lately. A lot of bugs are getting through. This comes across as moving to be prudent before she has to own some of the bad builds and software getting out.
  • Glad she is moving, didn't do anything to help. Also, can we agree that the WIP was only to get free QA testers. How about they go back to doing things well for products we pay for.
  • Being a software developer and distributor for a large audience having the Insider Program is valuable to see how updates react on multiple system configurations in real world scenarios. But there seemed to be a disconnect in quality control from the Insider to release builds. It seemed to me she was way involved in too many other things to handle the complexity of Windows and the required updates twice a year. I think it was time for a change in leadership.