Kevin Turner is Leaving Microsoft for Citadel

Kevin Turner, longtime COO of Microsoft, has left the building. In a blog post published on Thursday, CEO Satya Nadella made the announcement and thanked Turner for all he had contributed to the company for the past decade. As reported by TechCrunch, Turner played a very important role at Microsoft. During his tenure, Microsoft saw its revenue more than double. Customer satisfaction ratings were also at an all-time high. Turner was involved in many departments— so many that Nadella made it clear that he wouldn’t just have one successor, he’d have five. No, Nadella hasn’t established a chain of succession. Instead, the responsibilities formerly carried by Turner would be divided among five appointed leaders. Once you consider the magnitude of Turner’s job— which included working with sales, marketing, and product development— it’s easy to see why Nadella made that decision.

But Turner’s work is far from finished. The same day Nadella made his announcement, Citadel Securities announced that Kevin Turner would be joining them as CEO.

Framed in this way, TechCrunch calls the move a “mutual win-win”. Turner finally get’s to cement his leadership qualities at the top of a strong company, and rising stars are getting their due at Microsoft. Most notable among them are Judson Althoff and Jean Phillipe, who are now leading sales and marketing operations. This is a big deal for the company; since Nadella took over in 2014, he has been working to shape Microsoft in his image. This is an imperative for any company with new leadership— in order to keep morale high and sales strong, it’s important not to languish too long in the past. Naming Turner’s successors represent this continued changing of the guard.