Mikhail Parakhin, the head of Bing Search and Microsoft Advertising, is stepping down from that role as Parakhin "decided to explore new roles." We've quoted Mikhail Parakhin here countless times over the past couple of years, to hear that he is leaving the role makes me super sad. His transparency and willingness to listen to the community was amazing.
Bloomberg reported:
Microsoft Corp.’s Mikhail Parakhin, head of the company’s Bing search engine and advertising businesses, will exit those roles and look for a new position, a week after the software giant named Mustafa Suleyman to oversee consumer artificial intelligence work and asked Parakhin to report to him.Parakhin, who had been chief executive officer for advertising and web services, will report to Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott while searching for his next role, Microsoft said. Parakhin also oversaw some parts of the company’s Windows software business. That work will be shifted to Pavan Davuluri, who had been overseeing hardware and the rest of Windows. Davuluri will now run all of Windows and Surface hardware, reporting to Executive Vice President Rajesh Jha, who disclosed the changes in a staff email Monday.
The Verge has the staff email which reads:
I want to share an update on the Windows and Web Experiences (WWE) team following last week’s announcement and the creation of the Microsoft AI organization.Mikhail Parakhin has decided to explore new roles. Satya and I are grateful for Mikhail’s contributions and leadership and want to thank him for all he has done to help Microsoft lead in the new AI wave. He will report to Kevin Scott while supporting the WWE transition.
As part of this change, we are bringing together the Windows Experiences and Windows + Devices teams as a core part of the Experiences + Devices (E+D) division. This will enable us to take a holistic approach to building silicon, systems, experiences, and devices that span Windows client and cloud for this AI era. Pavan Davuluri will lead this team and continue to report to me. Shilpa Ranganathan and Jeff Johnson and their teams will report directly to Pavan. The Windows team will continue to work closely with the Microsoft AI team on AI, silicon, and experiences.
The Web Experiences team will report into Mustafa in the new Microsoft AI organization.
Jordi Ribas will lead Search, Maps, and Platforms with Andrey Proskurin, Fatima Kardar, and Nick Lee reporting to him.
Rukmini Iyer will lead Advertising with Paul Viola and Weiqing Tu reporting to her.
Mike Davidson continues to lead Design and will work with Pavan and team on how to realign Windows design.
Ali Akgun, Kya Sainsbury-Carter, Qi Zhang, and Rajesh Sundaram’s roles remain unchanged. They will join the Microsoft AI leadership team along with Jordi, Mike, and Rukmini, all reporting to Mustafa.
We are excited for this team to help Microsoft AI achieve its bold ambition to build world-class consumer AI products. And I very much look forward to closely partnering with Mustafa and the team as we bring our AI products, including Copilot, to the breadth of our E+D products and services.
Thanks,
Rajesh
Last September Microsoft announced that Microsoft's chief product officer Panos Panay is leaving the company and with that there were some internal leadership changes. Including Yusuf Mehdi and Mikhail Parakhin who are both super involved with Bing have newish roles.
Mikhail who is super active on X @MParakhin has been very quiet over the past 4-5 days.
Makes you wonder how Copilot was performing and why Microsoft made these executive changes...
I hope he is well and that he sticks with Bing, in an influential role.
Forum discussion at X.
