He was not a book-worm.

He was not from the portals of IIT or any other premium institutes of the
country. He went to Hyderabad Public School alongside thousands; he graduated from Manipal
Institute of Technology along with hundreds. But for almost three weeks now, he has become the
poster-boy for all the newspapers for a simple reason that, Worlds third largest company - Microsoft
has put all its trust in him to carry forward its legacy. Mr. Nadella Sathyanarayana, an Indian born
American has been appointed as the new CEO of Microsoft.
Mr.Nadella was born in a Telugu speaking family in Hyderabad 46 years ago. After his bachelor of
engineering in electrical and electronics, he had decided to move to US. There, he earned an MS in
Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Finally he rounded of his education
with a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Chicago. Mr.Nadella started
his career with Sun Microsystems. In 1992, Mr.Nadella entered the avenues of Microsoft as a
Program manager little knowing what it had in store for him twenty two years later.
In Microsoft, due to his technically sound intellect coupled with an excellent quality to lead the pack
Mr.Nadella rose up the ladder quickly, soon serving in various positions such as the Senior Vice
President of Research and Development for the online services division, the Vice President of the
Microsoft Business solutions group and notably, the President of the $19 Billion Microsoft Server and
Tools Business. Mr.Nadella also founded and led the 'Microsoft bCentral' small business online
services group. He was the general manager for the company's Commerce Platforms group, and is
considered responsible for spearheading the development of the Microsoft Commerce Server,
Microsoft BizTalk Server, Microsoft Office Small Business, and Microsoft Dynamics ERP and CRM
products. Nadella is also considered to have played a significant part in Microsoft's foray into
advanced technologies like digital rights management (DRM) and interactive television (ITV). When
he was heading the Server and Tools Business for the company, he was the man behind the
transformation of the business and technology from client-server software to cloud infrastructure and
services. For the last seven months, he has been serving Microsoft as the Vice President of Cloud
and Enterprise group. It is even said, Mr.Nadella is fondly known as the Cloud Guru in his fraternity!
Besides his professional life, Mr.Nadella seems to have a wide range of interests in his personal life.
He was part of his school cricket team. On several occasions he has said, I think playing cricket
taught me more about working in teams and leadership that has stayed with me throughout my
career. As an Engineer, he has a fascination to build things. It is this fascination that has fuelled his
thirst to learn more and more. Mr.Nadella considers himself to be a lifelong learner. He has the
humility to stay hungry and stay foolish. Even as a top executive of one of the Worlds best
organization, he signs up for some or other online courses to utilize the 15 minutes he gets in the
every morning! He believes his willingness to learn ceaselessly has carried him forth a long way.
Mr.Nadella loves poetry. What impresses him the most in poetry is that, something that takes pages
after pages to describe might take only a couple of lines in poetry, yet with the essence intact. It is
that compression in poetry that bowls him over.
With recent media speculations, Microsoft has been given an image of a fading star. Succeeding
Steve Ballmer as the CEO of Microsoft, Mr.Nadella has huge shoes to fill. His primary goal must be
to revive the company to its old glory. Several whispers may linger around questioning the decision
of Mr.Bill Gates. However, Mr.Bill Gates seems to have put all his trust on Mr.Nadella. Bill Gates has
stepped down as the chairperson of Microsoft and has decided to assist Mr.Nadella as a
technological advisor. We do not know if Bill Gates is right or wrong; Time has the answer in store.
Nevertheless, Bill Gates has surely given Indians a big reason to cheer!