Panos Panay is leaving Microsoft

Panos Panay, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Microsoft and a 20 year veteran of the company, is leaving, according to an internal email reported by The Verge.

The email, sent to Microsoft employees from Rajesh Jha, EVP for Experiences + Devices, does not give a reason for the departure:

After nearly 20 years at the company, Panos Panay has decided to leave Microsoft. Panos has had an incredible impact on our products and culture as well as the broader devices ecosystem. Under Panos’ leadership, the team created the iconic Surface brand with loved products. More recently, as the leader of Windows, the team has brought amazing services and experiences to hundreds of millions with Windows 11 on innovative devices including those from our OEM partners. He will be missed, and I am personally very grateful for his many contributions over the years. Please join me in wishing him well.

Panay acknowledged the news on X:

After 19 incredible years at Microsoft, I've decided to turn the page and write the next chapter. I’m forever grateful for my time at Microsoft and the amazing people I had the honor to make products with.

— Panos Panay (@panos_panay) September 18, 2023

Panay will however help in the transition to a new organization structure as outlined by Jha in the email:

Build silicon, systems and devices that span Windows, client and cloud for an AI world.

This team will be led by Pavan Davuluri, reporting directly to Jha. “Windows planning and release management will continue to be in this team. Our commitment to Surface and MR remains unchanged. ”

Build experiences that blend web, services and Windows for an AI world.

This will be a new “Windows and Web Experiences Team,” led by Bing Chat head Mikhail Parakhin, with teams led by Shilpa Ranganathan, Jeff Johnson and Ali Akgun moving with their teams intact to the new org.

Windows and Surface businesses with our OEM and Retail partners.

Yusuf Mehdi will take over these responibilities.

In addition, Charles Simonyi, Terri Chudzik and Erin Kolb will join the E+D management teams and Ralf Groene and Mike Davidson will work together on the best alignment on design teams.

Panos Panay has become very familiar both to fans of the Microsoft Surface line of devices, and later with Windows itself, leading the release of Windows 11. Are you a fan of Panos Panay? Let us know in the comments below