Terry Myerson is arguably the second most powerful man at Microsoft

When the leadership of a unit or organization changes, there’s a common theme. After a relatively brief evaluation period, the new leader replaces holdovers from the previous regime that aren’t in line with the new direction of the organization. Replacing those individuals are usually people hand selected by the new person on top. There was no exception to this rule at Microsoft. The four high ranking holdovers from the Steve Ballmer days are out, and three Satya Nadella hand selected individuals are in. One of those hand selected individuals is Terry Myerson, who is in charge of a massive amount of Microsoft and some are suspecting may be in line to replace Nadella whenever he decides to leave.

Stephen Elop, who left Microsoft for Nokia only to rejoin Microsoft when they purchased the Nokia phone division, Eric Rudder, who spent 25 years at Microsoft as a strategy chief officer, the top advertising man Mark Penn who was behind Scroogled, and Kirill Tatarinov who ran Dynamics and the Microsoft Business Solutions are all now elsewhere. Business Insider breaks down the full history and changing of the guard.

There are now three notable people in power. First and possibly most importantly when it comes to public perception is Terry Myerson, who is charge of the Windows and Devices Group which includes the Windows operating system and Microsoft hardware including the Surface line and phones. Next is Scott Guthrie who is charge of the Microsoft Cloud. Nadella’s mantra is “cloud first, mobile first” so Guthrie’s new position is likely viewed in high esteem to Nadella, who also manned that position himself before becoming CEO. Finally, there’s Qi Lu who is the boss of applications at Microsoft.

Business Insider is reporting that there are rumors that Myerson is “probably next in line for CEO.” This would likely be years in the future as Nadella only recently became the CEO but with how much Myerson is now in charge of, it wouldn’t be surprising that he is being groomed for an even larger role at Microsoft. Myerson is arguably the most powerful person at Microsoft other than Satya Nadella himself. Windows 10 is a major fork in the road for the future of Windows as an OS, Windows mobile devices, and loads of other hardware. By being in charge of the Windows OS and hardware, Myerson has a direct or indirect effect on almost anything Microsoft is involved in.

For more coverage on Myerson’s new role, you can listen to our most recent podcast in which we discussed how much Myerson is in charge of and how we predict he’ll do in this new large role.