Microsoft Moves Communications From Marketing to Brad Smith's CELA
The Verge published Nadella's memo in full, and GeekWire reported details from both Nadella's memo and a companion one from Smith. Together they give a clear picture of the new structure. According to GeekWire, Microsoft is moving its communications function out of its marketing group and into the corporate, external and legal affairs organization led by Brad Smith, its vice chair and president, according to internal emails Thursday from Smith and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Business Insider reported the change the same day, also citing the memo. Reuters picked up that report in a news brief.
Before the change, the company's communications department was previously overseen by Chief Marketing Officer Takeshi Numoto. Nadella's memo presents the new arrangement as the result of talks between himself, Numoto and Smith about "the evolution of comms at the company." It says Nadella has asked Smith to lead the communications function "going forward."
"Going forward" is not just memo language. GeekWire reports that the next chief communications officer is also expected to report to Smith. That means communications stays in CELA after the interim period ends. Smith is running the search for that officer with Numoto and Chief People Officer Amy Coleman, and both internal and external candidates are being considered.
CELA is not a small team. Microsoft's own executive biography says Smith leads a team of roughly 2,000 business, legal and corporate affairs professionals located in 54 countries and operating in more than 120 nations. His public brief already covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, privacy, environmental sustainability, human rights, digital safety, immigration, philanthropy, and products and business for non-profit customers. Corporate communications now joins that list.
Brent Colburn Stays On as Interim Chief as Frank Shaw Steps Back Early
The interim plan puts people in place quickly, but most of them are on their way out. According to GeekWire, Brent Colburn, Microsoft's VP of global public affairs, was named interim communications leader, effective next week, reporting to Smith. Colburn had already announced his own exit. He announced this month that he was leaving the company in mid-October. He will now stay through December and is not a candidate for the permanent role.
Nadella's memo sets out the reporting lines. The communications leadership team will report to Colburn, and Shaw will advise Smith and Colburn during the transition. GeekWire adds that Colburn will also join Numoto's leadership team as well as Smith's during the interim period. That keeps a formal link between communications and marketing even though the function has moved.
Shaw announced his departure on September 11. Axios reported then that he would leave at the end of December after 17 years as chief communications officer and almost three decades working with Microsoft. That includes his earlier years at Microsoft's outside PR agency before he joined the company. At the time, Microsoft had not named a successor and said it would consider internal and external candidates.
This week's memos move Shaw out sooner than his announcement suggested. GeekWire reports that Shaw will step away from his current responsibilities and serve as an advisor to Smith and Colburn during the transition, according to the memos. GeekWire says the timing surprised some people inside Microsoft. Shaw told the outlet by phone that the memos simply formalize the plan already announced, and that he will stay at Microsoft as an adviser through the end of the year.
GeekWire also reports that Smith's memo expands the communications leadership team, and the additions show how much the function is being tied to top executives:
- Caitlin McCabe, Carol Ann Browne and Dave Imperiale join because of the communications work they do for Nadella, Smith, and Judson Althoff, CEO of Microsoft's commercial business.
- Kate Frischmann joins to represent the public affairs side of Smith's organization.
Why CELA Now Owns Microsoft's Public Voice
Communications now sits next to regulation and litigation. GeekWire notes that Smith's organization handles Microsoft's legal, regulatory and public-policy work, including antitrust matters, litigation and government relations. Communications moves in beside those functions and away from marketing and product, although both memos stress that communications and marketing will keep coordinating.
Smith's career explains the choice. He joined Microsoft in 1993 and oversaw the resolution of the company's antitrust cases. He was a senior vice president and general counsel from 2002 to 2015, became president in 2015 and became vice chair in 2021. Business Insider says the reorganization will hand oversight of corporate communications to an executive who has become the public face of Microsoft's positions on regulation, geopolitics, AI governance, and other issues shaping the company's global expansion. The Verge makes a similar point, noting that Smith travels the world meeting governments, regulators and customers.
Nadella's memo gives its own reasons, and none of them mention regulation. He says Smith brings "a deep understanding of our business, a strong connection to our stakeholders, and a rare ability to communicate complex ideas with clarity, conviction, and trust." He also writes that few leaders embody Microsoft's voice as authentically as Smith.
Some commentators read more into the move. A market-news note from Newsquawk argued that putting communications under Smith reads as consolidation of the policy-facing and reputational functions rather than a routine marketing move. That is one analyst's view, and neither memo describes the change that way. The structural facts are simple: the executive who speaks for Microsoft to governments now also runs the team that speaks for it to the press.
Nadella's Memo Wants Engineers and Sellers Telling Microsoft's Story
The memo's second half is about a new approach to communications. Nadella says Microsoft needs to "find new ways to connect directly with all of our constituencies" in a media environment he calls "increasingly fragmented and noisier than ever." He writes that the people closest to the work have the best opportunity to shape how Microsoft is understood. We need to give people across the company the tools and support to do it well.
He names who he means. He wants to help engineers, sellers, partners, and others closest to our products and customers become an even bigger part of how we tell our story, all connected by a shared strategy and set of principles. GeekWire reports that Smith's memo says the same thing more directly: Microsoft will "likely have more employees and executives acting as part of Microsoft's public voice, including on social media."
GeekWire calls this a push to "build in public" and compares it to how AI labs work. OpenAI and Anthropic researchers often post informally in their own voices and lead blogs and livestreams. The Verge makes the same comparison and connects it to Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman's stated goal of making Microsoft one of the top four AI labs in the world. GeekWire says a person familiar with the situation described Nadella and Microsoft's engineering leadership as pushing to modernize communications toward a more direct style. "Building in public" is the journalists' description, though, and not a named program in either memo.
Nadella admits the details are not settled yet. "We will learn, we will experiment, and we will evolve," he writes, adding that there is "a fundamentally new way to think about communications." Neither memo, as reported, sets out new employee social-media rules, approval processes, training or a timetable. The only concrete decisions so far are the reporting structure and the people in it.
Microsoft's Fall Events Are the First Run for the New Structure
The memo points to an early use for the new setup. Nadella writes: We have an exciting fall ahead, with a number of important moments and events coming up and great marketing behind them. It is a real opportunity to bring together our product story, our marketing, and our communications in new ways. He does not name the events.
The timing is tight. Colburn takes over the week after the memo and stays only until December. Shaw is advising, not leading. The permanent chief communications officer has not been chosen. So this fall's announcements will be handled by an interim team, reporting into a legal-and-policy organization, while trying out a model in which more product people speak directly.
For people who follow Microsoft announcements closely, one thing to watch is a gradual change in who does the talking. Nadella's stated plan points toward more announcements, explanations and responses coming directly from the engineers and product leaders who built the features. That is an inference from the memo, not a documented policy change.
What This Means for Windows Users and IT Pros
This reorganization requires no action from anyone running Windows, Microsoft 365 or Azure. Neither memo, as reported, changes product policy, support, licensing, release channels or technical operations. What it may change over time is where Microsoft's official explanations come from and how they are delivered, and that affects anyone who relies on Microsoft's public messaging to plan deployments or judge problems.
- Microsoft's corporate communications team now reports to Brad Smith's CELA organization instead of Chief Marketing Officer Takeshi Numoto, and the next permanent chief communications officer is expected to report to Smith as well.
- Brent Colburn is interim communications leader through December and will not take the job permanently, so another leadership change in communications is coming.
- Frank X. Shaw has stepped away from running communications and is advising the transition until he leaves at the end of 2026.
- Nadella and Smith both say more Microsoft engineers, sellers, partners and executives will speak publicly for the company, including on social media, but no new rules or programs have been published yet.
- IT administrators should keep relying on formal channels such as release notes, support documentation and Message Center posts for decisions. Treat informal posts by employees as useful context, not as official policy.
Microsoft has put its communications under the executive who already speaks for it on AI governance, antitrust and geopolitics, and it has made that arrangement permanent. The next milestones are Microsoft's fall events, which an interim team will run, and the naming of a permanent chief communications officer before Colburn and Shaw both leave in December. That appointment, and whether employees are actually given the tools and guidance Nadella promised, will show how far the "fundamentally new way" of communicating goes beyond a new org chart.