Microsoft’s U.S. partner team will have a new chief on July 1 as part of an executive reshuffling designed to allow company leaders to develop career skills by taking on different roles, Microsoft said this week.
However, the changes should have no effect on how Microsoft works with its U.S. channel partners, the company said.
Margo Day, who had been running Microsoft’s U.S. Partner Group as vice president, is moving to a regional role in the organization and will be replaced by Robert Deshaies, previously regional vice president of the Small and Mid-Market Solutions and Partners (SMS&P) group for the East region. Day will take over as regional vice president of the SMS&P’s West region.
A spokesman from Microsoft’s public relations firm Waggener Edstrom said on Wednesday that the shift in Day’s role is a lateral move since all of the vice presidents in the U.S. partner group report to Michael Park, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of the SMS&P.
Park, who joined Microsoft in October 2005 from SAP, engineered the changes as part of a plan to “cross-pollinate” the U.S. partner program with executives who have different areas of expertise, the spokesman said.
Other executives who also will assume new positions in the organization are Matt Pease, who will become region vice president for services, and Dave Willis, who will replace Deshaies as regional vice president of the East region for the SMS&P. Previously, Pease was regional vice president of the West region of the SMS&P and Willis was vice president of the SMS&P for Microsoft Canada.
The spokesman added that switching executives to new roles in the company is a typical occurrence for Microsoft as a way to keep executives sharp and offer them new challenges.
It’s not uncommon for large companies to make organizational changes periodically, especially in time for a new fiscal year. For example, Sun restructures its sales organization at the end of every fiscal year. In fact, the changes in Microsoft’s U.S. partner management team are timed to take effect when Microsoft’s 2007 fiscal year begins on July 1.
Microsoft is discussing the partner organization changes this week at its Channel Partner Summit in San Diego, an event that is closed to the press.
