Satya Nadella Won’t Attend Microsoft Ignite 2025

If you’ve been wondering whether Satya Nadella will be keynoting at Ignite 2025, the answer is NO. Microsoft has officially published the list of speakers for the event and has also confirmed that Nadella won’t be part of this year’s lineup (via Windows Central).

Judson Althoff, Microsoft’s newly appointed CEO of Commercial, will lead the main keynote at Chase Arena in San Francisco, instead of Nadella. He will be joined by several other speakers, including Scott Guthrie, Ryan Roslansky, Asha Sharma, Charles Lamanna, and Arun Ulag.

For those unaware, this will be the first Ignite where Nadella will be absent. If you’ve followed Ignite, you must be aware that it has always been focused on IT professionals and commercial customers. And this year it appears to be no different. AI, which has been center of everything at Microsoft, is expected to dominate the discussions.

Ignite 2025 runs from November 18–21 in San Francisco, with over 17,000 attendees expected both in person and online. Keynotes will be streamed live.

As you may know, Nadella has handed over much of his commercial responsibilities to Althoff. And, the fact that he is now taking the lead at the keynote suggests that Microsoft has shifted its focus. Noe, the company is giving Nadella some space to double down on what Microsoft calls as “highest ambition technical work.”