Microsoft has announced a leadership change at the top of its security organisation, bringing back a former executive while moving its current security chief into a different role. Hayete Gallot, who left Microsoft in 2024 to join Google Cloud, is returning as executive vice president of security and will report directly to CEO Satya Nadella. At the same time, Charlie Bell, who had been leading Microsoft’s security team, will shift into a role focused on engineering quality. As per Microsoft’s official blog post, CEO Satya Nadella said in a message to employees, ‘Charlie and I have been planning this transition for some time, given his desire to move from being an org leader to being an IC engineer. And I love how energized he is to practice this craft here day in and day out!’
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Microsoft’s blog post confirmed that Hayete Gallot will lead its security division as executive vice president. Gallot is a familiar name inside the company. She first joined Microsoft in 2009 and spent more than ten years working across strategy, business development, and sales. Before leaving in 2024, she was a corporate vice president involved in selling products across several areas, including security.
After her exit from Microsoft, Gallot joined Google Cloud as president of customer experience. That role placed her close to enterprise customers and their concerns around reliability, data protection, and service quality. Nadella, in the message to employees, said Gallot’s background in both product and customer-facing roles made her suitable for the job.
‘Hayete joins us from Google where she was President, Customer Experience for Google Cloud. Before that, she spent more than 15 years at Microsoft with senior leadership roles across engineering and sales, playing multiple critical roles in building two of our biggest franchises – Windows and Office, leading our commercial solution areas’ go-to-market efforts. And she was instrumental in the design and implementation of our Security Solution Area. She brings an ethos that combines product building with value realization for customers, which is critical right now,’ the message read.
In her new position, Gallot will oversee Microsoft’s overall security strategy, covering internal systems as well as products used by businesses and consumers. Ales Holecek will also move into a new role as chief architect for security and will report to Gallot. The changes suggest that Microsoft wants tighter coordination between security planning and product development, especially across Windows, Azure, and its growing AI services.
Charlie Bell, on the other hand, will step away from his role as Microsoft’s security chief and take on a position focused on engineering quality. He will continue to report directly to Nadella and work closely with senior leaders across cloud and AI teams.
Bell joined Microsoft in 2021 after spending more than two decades at Amazon, where he held senior roles within AWS. During his time at Microsoft, Bell led a security team of around 10,000 people and pushed security higher up the company’s internal priority list. His tenure also coincided with several major security incidents.
In 2023, Microsoft disclosed a breach involving government email accounts that later led to a critical US security review. The company responded by making operational changes and tying cybersecurity performance more closely to employee evaluations. According to a report from Bloomberg, Bell was closely involved in these efforts, including the Secure Future Initiative. The latest reshuffle comes as Microsoft faces investor pressure over slower Azure growth and broader uncertainty around how AI will impact its core software business.
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