Panos Panay will lead the Windows Experience in addition to Microsoft's hardware efforts

By Sean Endicott
last updated

Microsoft will combine two of its large teams under the leadership of Panos Panay.

Best Microsoft Surface Book Accessories of 2017
Best Microsoft Surface Book Accessories of 2017 (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Microsoft will reorganize several parts of its structure and leadership team over the next month.
  • Panos Panay will lead the Devices + Windows team, a combination of the Windows Experience (client) and the Microsoft hardware teams.
  • Microsoft often reorganizes leadership roles and team structures in the first quarter of the year.

Microsoft will mix things up in a reorganization over the next month. Mary Jo Foley reports through ZDNet on the upcoming changes. The most significant news is that Chief Product Officer Panos Panay will lead the Devices + Windows team, which will be a combination of the current Windows Experience (client) and Microsoft hardware teams. Foley reports that the Devices + Windows team will report to Panay and that the change will take effect on February 25, 2020.

The current head of the Windows Experience business, Joe Belfiore, will move over to the Office team at Microsoft. Belfiore and Ales Holecek will lead the Office Experience Group (OXO) team as a product/engineering team, according to Foley. Belfiore will also continue to lead the Essential Products Inclusive Community, which includes Microsoft News and Microsoft's apps on iOS and Android. Belfiore will not start his new role until this Fall because his family is doing another "Semester at Sea."

The newly formed Devices + Windows team still falls under the leadership of Rajesh Jha, who is on the Microsoft Senior Leadership team. While Panay gains more responsibility with this move, he will not join the Microsoft Senior Leadership team, according to Foley.

In addition to the changes regarding Windows and devices, there are several other notable changes that have already happened or that will take place soon. Corporate Vice President Brian Macdonald will retire from the industry. Macdonald currently runs the Microsoft Teams Business. He will continue to consult part-time with Jha. Corporate Vice President Jeff Teper will lead Teams as well as OneDrive and SharePoint. Kirk Koenigsbauer will become Jha's Chief Operating Officer. Koenigsbauer is currently Corporate Vice President of Microsoft 365.

Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

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).

20 Comments
  • I can't wait to see where Windows and Surface go next under Panos' leadership. He's an amazing visionary and could be the disrupter Windows needed.
  • I love my SPX but the stumbling blocks they hit with launching it before they had a full handle on the apps situation was definitely a sign that the Surface and Windows teams weren't in sync with one another. It seems like a lot of times Panos has decided to push the envelope with something in hardware (like parity between ARM and x86 devices) and the OS team falls behind on delivering the software to support it. Hopefully this addresses that.
  • Maybe they will finally pay more attention to the fluidity of the experience now. I'm looking at Task View and Aero Peek over taskbar thumbnails.
  • Push the Envelope, Visionary, Disrupter... did I just stumble into an Infommerical? All consumer facing stuff dies under Panos and Belfiore....
  • What? I (most of us, I guess) see the opposite especially on Surface department. 🤔
  • Surface is just a laptop. Nothing risky has ever worked out.
  • I need to ask you if this is also your view of Apple or Google or you're just diminishing Microsoft's wins.
  • bleached have never never seen Microsoft and Win in same room, real-estate, sentence and or continent together ever.
  • I didn't say anything about Google and Apple, but I will bite. Google has had a hard time getting Android into new markets, but they still sell 300 million Android devices every quarter. Apple has been able to penetrate every market for the most part. They have strong phone, tablets, PCs, wearables, TV, and services penetration.
  • Surface is niche and expensive.
  • Panos is a straight Midas. And dunno Belfiore, but Windows is doing pretty well. Far from dying.
  • It isn't growing either and it certainly isn't increasing it's penetration into new device categories. It is still just legacy PCs. Some might have removable keyboards, but Window's reach has not increased.
  • Thanks for confirming yourself to fdruid, you sure have a thing for MSFT
  • This is a Microsoft site. What else would we be talking about?
  • You do realize that Windows makes the most of Microsoft's money, not the cloud. You sound like Microsoft is going broke, because of Windows.
  • I am saying Windows isn't growing. That is all I said.
  • Microsoft is increasing in profits year on year, everything else is irrelevant.
  • On the back of windows? Why do you, as a consumer, care if Azure and Office is making money?
  • This is good
  • As far as I'm concerned, Panay has no clue. This move doesn't excite me at all.