One of Microsoft’s board of directors, John W. Thompson has revealed in a post on the Microsoft blog that the company’s hunt for a new CEO is in its final stages. The successor to Steve Ballmer is expected to be chosen in early 2014.
“After defining our criteria, we initially cast a wide net across a number of different industries and skill sets. We identified over 100 possible candidates, talked with several dozen, and then focused our energy intensely on a group of about 20 individuals, all extremely impressive in their own right,” Thompson wrote, in part. “As you would expect, as this group has narrowed, we’ve done deeper research and investigation, including with the full Board. We’re moving ahead well, and I expect we’ll complete our work in the early part of 2014.”
Reports from early November suggested Microsoft had narrowed its CEO candidate list to around five people. The candidates include Ford CEO Alan Mulally, former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, Skype CEO Tony Bates and EVP of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise Satya Nadella. Ballmer announced in August that he would retire within 12 months, not long after Don Mattrick departed Microsoft for the CEO position at Zynga.
(via VG247)