21 – 55 – 2: The Power of Goodbye!

• 21 Years working for Microsoft and loving every year of it!
• 55 countries visited with at least 5.500 friends/colleagues/connections
• 2 children: my most valuable treasures and proudest moments in life!

After 21 years this is one of the most emotional moments in my career: I love this company and I always will. I am humbled and incredibly grateful of having had the chance to experience and work with such an incredible amount of talented and passionate leaders, teams, customers and partners – and I feel I am among the “luckiest” for the chances and opportunities I have been given in such a thriving environment.

But the time has come for me to make a change and to follow my dreams for personal growth? – and even though I will remain very close to Microsoft,? I will soon join another great company to help it grow, give it my all? and to lead by example and drive Cloud transformation with integrity and inspiration - and it will be thrilling and exciting to get to know new people, new ways of leading businesses and a new company culture.

Working at Microsoft never was “just a job” for me - because when you truly love what you do, it evolves into a mission and a purpose that drives every action, and you naturally transgress into becoming a lifelong learner, honing your skills and commit to excellence. Even before it become “a thing” to be an empathic leader, this has always been my natural strength – to learn from others, to collaborate, to lead, to drive change, to transform teams and businesses – and to make and nurture lasting relationships.

Gratitude has always played a significant role in my life – it is part of my upbringing, my DNA and my powerful source of happiness. So I will not leave without saying a heartfelt “thank you” to so many – because you all inspired and contributed to the person I am today. As you can imagine, after 21 years, my list is quite a long one and I already apologize for all of you I did not list – please know you are close to my heart nevertheless!

Starting my career at Microsoft Germany, I would like to thank all my former managers, mentors, coaches and team colleagues. What a blast we had with launching Windows 7 (!) in Germany with Deutsche Telekom and BMW, while having a “private launch” at the very same time: the birth of my wonderful daughter, followed by the birth of my amazing son one year later! And still, I was promoted 2 years in a row with having two children in two years – which at that time was something truly new and set the foundation for many other female colleagues to decide to have it all: being a mother and having a successful career at Microsoft! My thanks goes in particular to Achim Berg , Ralph Haupter and Robert Helgerth (thank you for hiring me!), Julia Kellner-Long , Christian Mehrtens , Werner Leibrandt , Detlef Krause , Dorothee Ritz , Raquel Goldmann , Ricarda Rodatus , Madeleine Dua , Robert Rosellen , Gülay Vural , Thorsten Stockmann , Ole Fjordside , J?rg Hildesheim and so many more!

I then moved to the CEE region – and it became my favorite region ever since – simply because once you win the hearts and minds from the people in this region, you will love them for life! Thank you for hiring me dear Anke den Ouden – I learned so much from you and your knowledge and advice is being passed on to the next Linnemann generation – this is how far-reaching your legacy plays a role in people’s lives! It was an amazing time of change transformation at Microsoft and thank you for letting me be a part of that era: Don Grantham , Biljana Weber and Ernst Jan Stigter (thank you both for the mentorship which drove me back to Commercial sales!), Wilfried Heermann (and all the best wishes for your retirement!), Markus Koehler , Tomasz Bochenek , Silvia Candiani , Dimitra Darda , Kristina Michalsky , Dominic Lennon , Alyona Babushkina , Przemys?aw Jakubiec , Agnes Lorinczi , Myladie Stoumbou , Dmitry Pakhomov , Karina Pereira and my best friend Zuzana Piling (Volekova) !

I loved being in sales – and joined the EMEA Financing sales team to really get a very diverse background and extended my skills portfolio – thank you dear Toby Roetto for hiring and believing in me – and together with the team we reached incredible heights – thank you for being my role model and always having my back! And thank you dear Kevin McCarthy for the all the time you invested in me as my mentor and ally – I learned so much about Finance from you!

I then moved to the Devices and Cloud business in the region Western-Europe, where it helped a lot that I could speak 5 languages of the region to get by!? Thank you Luis Curro for hiring me into this magnificent region with spans very mature and emerging markets and we made this region into the best performing region – thank you for always being there for me! Dear WE team, how greatly we rocked the boat together and I miss you: Maria Serra Palos , Penelope Valdes Boy , Claudia Bonatti , Diana S. , Alessandro De Lio , Florian Blank , Sebastiaan Driessen , Jesus Redondo , Javier Pinedo , Nicola Casti and Anders Wistam !.

And then finally my last role in the EMEA Teams & Teams Rooms devices team – the one and only DREAM TEAM led by the amazing Annbritt Andersen with a big heart, and a big shout out with sincere gratitude to my corporate leaders Alvaro Celis (He/Him/El) , Justin Slane , Ilya Bukshteyn , Zuzana Piling (Volekova) and Sukhvinder Guraya !

As the EMEA dream team, we reached so much so fast - and the memory (and the video!) of our team together will remain one of our peaks in our careers! So sending love to all of you and we need to have a? dream team reunion some time very soon – it is up to us Dorthe Lund Kongsgaard , Nicky Chapman , Nathalie Regniers , Robert Karlsson , Martin Zimmer , Christophe Cygan , David Allen , Mohammed Khalifa , Gilles Paravano , George Simon , Steven Christensen , Michel Bouman , Morten Boll ?rnfeldt , Tom Halards , Syed Bilal Tariq and Lukasz Curzydlo !

And last but certainly not least, thank you to all my dear partners for the amazing friendships, learnings and partnerships: Andrea Recupero , Kimberly Tee , Sara Puppis , Charlie James , Philip Sempels , Simon Kitson , Joel Chimoindes , Patrick Zammit , Hugo Da Gra?a , Fabio Capecelatro , Richard Tricklebank , Carlos Morono , Roman Klinke and many many more!

21 years – 55 countries with many more friends and meaningful connections – and 2 wonderful children who grew up with a Microsoft mom – that is my legacy at my last day at Microsoft! It has been such an honor and privilege!

I now am looking forward to a magenta future in the Cloud starting tomorrow and will pass on all your inspiration, learnings and contributions to the next step in my career journey!

With the deepest gratitude – until we meet again!

Rachel

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#microsoftalumna #gratitude #powerofgoodybe #teamsroomsforever