Microsoft announces president Brad Smith as its vice chair

Brad Smith (Image credit: Microsoft)

What you need to know

Microsoft's board of directors has approved Brad Smith as a vice chair of the company.
Smith has been with Microsoft since 1993 and is the company's president and top lawyer.
Smith will continue to report to Satya Nadella, who was made Microsoft board chairman earlier this year.

Microsoft's board of directors announced that it approved president and chief legal officer Brad Smith as a vice chair of the company. In his new role, Smith will continue to report to Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella. Earlier this year, Nadella was named Microsoft's board chairman. Smith has been with Microsoft since 1993 and is one of the company's top executives. He will continue to be the company's president in addition to acting in his new role.

"This reflects the unique leadership role that Brad plays for the company, our board of directors and me, with governments and other external stakeholders around the world," said Nadella (opens in new tab).

Smith's bio on Microsoft's website (opens in new tab) explains that "he plays a key role in spearheading the company's work on critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society, including cybersecurity, privacy, artificial intelligence, environmental sustainability, human rights, immigration and philanthropy."

In his role as company president, Smith has been involved in major policy discussions ranging from foreign governments to sustainability. Smith is also Microsoft's top lawyer. Earlier this year, Smith testified at a U.S. antitrust hearing. He also weighed in on the recent SolarWinds attack.

Alongside the announcement of Smith's new role, Microsoft's board of directors also announced a new share repurchase program. The program authorizes up to $60 billion in share repurchases. It does not have an announced expiration date but can be terminated at any time. Microsoft's last repurchase program was announced in 2019 and was for $40 billion.

The board of directors also declared a quarterly dividend of $0.62 per share, which is an 11% increase over the previous quarter.

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

6 Comments

Apple found its next "I'm a PC" guy.
Given the news about Brad Smith, I just dumped $372k of MS shares. Like many big company executives, Brad is a parasite that feeds off large host companies, to power a Trojan Horse Religion called "Woke", as a means to gain personal power/wealth/status. These parasites have a negative impact on the host companies' products & services. Obviously, investors are hurt and employees are less happy, but customers and society suffer the most, with higher costs for lower quality products/services. Customers are less efficient/effective, with the lower quality products/services..... causing lower wages, and less time for more important things in life. The insult to injury... the woke policies they drive, are designed NOT to work.... giving them a Trojan horse that never dies, but grows in power. Bottom line, as investors and customers, we need to not fall prey to these false prophets. We must demand executives that WORK FOR US, who are passionate geeks about their companies’ products/services, not some self-absorbed, power hungry parasites, who hate their customers.
Woke Conspiracy. Riiiiighto, then... >.>
@JediTWang Unfortunately, people personify corporate orgs. As opposed to treating them like corporate orgs that will transition with any societal change in a bid to keep generating profit. Nevertheless I've never seen such idiotic shortsightedness against equal opportunities for all. Most people's critical thinking skills has gone down the toilet.
Got me beat. I only dumped $350k worth of shares.
Lol, was that sarcasm?

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