Reflections on my first year at Microsoft

This month marks my one-year anniversary at Microsoft. It has been an exceptional year of learning and growth, with change happening at so many different levels. I feel privileged to be part of that journey at Microsoft, and to be working with so many dedicated and accomplished colleagues. ?

As I reflect on this time, I wanted to share three main takeaways from my first year at Microsoft.

AI will change the way we develop and create new products

I’ll start with what is top-of-mind for me, my customers, partners, and colleagues. No surprise, it is AI.

AI is everywhere and its potential is enormous. It is a game-changer for every industry. Every customer I speak with knows this and is looking for a strategic partner to help them understand what AI can do for their business. My team and I feel very privileged to be a trusted partner along their AI journeys.

What most people do not know is that Microsoft has been reinventing ourselves into an AI company for decades. The exciting momentum of our AI announcements these last eight months is actually a culmination of the company’s work over the last 10 years, grounded in a focus on responsible AI.

While some technology trends have come and gone, one thing we know to be true is that AI is here to stay. I see the biggest AI opportunity is in Research & Development (R&D), where the impact can be truly revolutionary.

For many of our customers, R&D is amongst the largest budget items. But it has not benefited from the latest technology innovations yet in the same way that other areas of the business have. This is beginning to change, with companies starting to realize benefits of the cloud in R&D. Just look at VW is doing with Microsoft Azure for speed up their development time.

I think generative AI can be for R&D what IoT has been for production. A new, cutting-edge way for companies to change the way they make something new. That's where the sweet spot of generative AI is. And for manufacturing and mobility companies that means product design and engineering. It’s about cutting time to launch a new product in half or more—a conversation that gets every CEO excited. To me this opens an entire new horizon of significant opportunity. ?

Things are moving so fast with AI and there’s a lot of “fear of missing out.” C-suite executives are worried they won’t have a compelling AI strategy to take to their customers and investors.

However, many of Microsoft’s customers realized the AI opportunity early on and have moved fast with us. They are now using AI in very unique and compelling ways. For example, our pioneering work with Siemens is helping industrial companies be more productive with generative AI to drive innovation and efficiency across the design, engineering, manufacturing, and operational product lifecycle. Kawasaki Heavy Industries has unlocked the power of AI and the industrial metaverse to bring their distributed workforce together with their network of connected equipment. And Sight Machine’s new Factory CoPilot leverages Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service to make manufacturing analysis and real-time insights accessible for all, from machine operators to executives.

The importance of partnership and trust

To take risks and break new ground in the industry with technologies like AI, you need to have two things: partnership and trust. The importance of these has never been more vital than they are today.

And nowhere have I felt that spirit of partnership and trust more strongly than here at Microsoft. When it comes to partnership, we have an amazing capability to collaborate deeply with our customers and the industry overall. This may be Microsoft’s most subtle yet most impactful “superpower”.

Microsoft has the privilege of working with some of the most sophisticated and advanced companies in their respective fields to help them stay at the cutting edge of what they do. Many companies pride themselves on putting customer success at the core of their mission. What has really impressed me since joining Microsoft is how the company invests in building bridges. Thereby making it easy for all customers to reap the benefits of our technology, no matter where they are on their journey.

Anchoring this notion of partnership is trust. You hear us say that “Microsoft runs on trust.” It is not just a tagline; it is a concept that is deeply embedded in how we and our partners successfully serve our customers.

In my mind, no other company has elevated this principle to such cultural importance as Microsoft has. As a result, we have a strong track record of building multi-year collaborations with not just corporations, but the people behind them. It is my personal goal to make the people behind the transformations successful—not just the organization.

Trust takes time to build, and Microsoft has a very long and rich history here. One striking example of the impact of trust and partnership for me was when I first visited our Executive Briefing Center (EBC) in Redmond, WA. This is where we host many of our customers for hands-on experiences and discussions to inspire opportunities across the digital transformation journey.

There is a fascinating artifact housed at the EBC in a prominent location for guests to enjoy: an original piece of the Berlin Wall. This was gifted to Microsoft in 1996 by Jürgen Schrempp, former CEO of Daimler. Seeing this was very powerful for me; it truly crystalizes the significance and impact of partnership and trust we have built with Daimler, now Mercedes-Benz Group AG, over these many decades.

And these many decades later, we continue our trusted partnership with Mercedes-Benz, who is using Microsoft AI capabilities in earnest to transform the automotive value chain: from reinventing the in-car experience for drivers, to enriching their customer service, to optimizing vehicle production. I will be diving deeper into this in my forthcoming video podcast – stay tuned.[DW1]?

This is just one example of our history of partnership. There are many others. We are working with companies including NVIDIA to provide customers with a full-stack cloud environment and platform capabilities to design, develop, deploy, and manage industrial metaverse applications. Leading travel technology company Amadeus and Microsoft are using AI, data analytics, and the metaverse to create more personalized and relevant experiences for travelers. And our work with Ansys is bringing the power of cloud-based simulation to break design barriers and scale innovation.

Creating a culture of renewal: The impact of a growth mindset

As a former senior partner at McKinsey & Co, I find that one of the main things that inhibits large organizations is culture. Culture is impossibly difficult to fix, yet it eats strategy for breakfast.

I’ve always been impressed by transformation Microsoft went through in the past decade. What I didn’t realize is that at the bottom of this transformation is a transformation in culture, with the “growth mindset” at the heart of it. The growth mindset is about always learning, leaning into uncertainty, being open to the ideas of others, admitting mistakes and taking risks.

It inspires me to see this growth mindset culture in action here at Microsoft. I see my colleagues here being empowered to fix or build something where they see a need, while having the space to fail and learn and get better over time. We want to be a company of learn-it-alls, not know-it-alls. This leads to better outcomes for the company and every employee.

It also extends to how we work with our customers and partners. An example of this that stands out for me is how we partnered with CarMax to help them experiment and innovate at scale with AI. Together, we created new business value for CarMax, helping them reach their goal of making their customers’ car buying experience easier and more streamlined.

If you think about it, Microsoft was not born a digital native. Many of our customers were not born digital natives either. We are constantly innovating, building upon our successes, and learning from our failures. And then as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says, we “hit refresh” in our persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal. He encourages the entire organization to have a humble appreciation for what we don’t yet know.

Microsoft’s ability to renew ourselves is just extraordinary and I think it is something most people admire most about this company. We know about transformation because we have lived through it many times over. This gives us the remarkable ability to empathize with our customers and help them along the change journey they are going through. ?

I was so inspired by this concept of renewal that I am launching a new vodcast series focused on this very topic. Over the coming months, I will sit down with customers, partners, pundits, and thought leaders to explore how to not just survive disruption, but to thrive and innovate. I am excited to bring these fresh perspectives to you so that we can all learn and grow together as we strive for relentless renewal.

I invite you to follow me here on LinkedIn to learn more about the launch of this series, as well as stay updated on the latest news.