Microsoft is moving its communications function out of marketing and into the Corporate, External and Legal Affairs organization led by vice chair and president Brad Smith.
The change, first reported by GeekWire from internal emails sent by CEO Satya Nadella and Smith, puts corporate communications alongside legal, regulatory, public policy and government-relations functions.
Key Takeaways
- Microsoft’s communications function will move from marketing into Brad Smith’s Corporate, External and Legal Affairs organization.
- Brent Colburn will serve as interim communications leader while Microsoft searches internally and externally for a new chief communications officer.
- The structure puts reputation, policy and corporate messaging closer together while Microsoft also wants more employees and executives speaking publicly.
Table of contents
Jump to each section:
- The reporting line is the real change
- Microsoft wants more people to speak for Microsoft
- Marketing remains connected, but no longer owns comms
- What comms leaders can take from the structure
The reporting line is the real change
Microsoft’s communications team has long operated close to the company’s product and marketing machinery. The new structure moves it into Smith’s Corporate, External and Legal Affairs organization.
That matters because the organization already handles some of Microsoft’s most consequential external issues, including regulation, litigation, antitrust matters and government relations. Corporate communications will now sit in the same leadership structure as those functions.
Brent Colburn, Microsoft’s vice president of global public affairs, will take over as interim communications leader beginning next week and report to Smith. Colburn had previously announced plans to leave Microsoft in October, but will now stay through December. He is not a candidate for the permanent role.
Frank X. Shaw, who has led Microsoft’s communications organization for more than 17 years internally, will step away from day-to-day responsibilities and advise Smith and Colburn through the transition.
Microsoft is searching internally and externally for its next chief communications officer. GeekWire reports that the permanent CCO is also expected to report to Smith, making the new structure more than an interim arrangement.
Microsoft wants more people to speak for Microsoft
The organizational move comes with a broader change in how Nadella wants the company to communicate.
In the internal memo obtained by GeekWire, Nadella wrote that “the people closest to the work have the best opportunity to shape how Microsoft is understood.” He wants engineers, sellers, partners and other employees closer to products and customers to become a larger part of how Microsoft tells its story.
Smith echoed that direction, saying Microsoft will likely have more employees and executives acting as part of the company’s public voice, including on social media.
For communications teams, that creates a different operating challenge from a traditional centralized press office. More employee and executive voices can make a company sound more direct and technically credible, but only if message principles, escalation rules and spokesperson support are clear enough for people to operate without creating contradictions.
The communications function therefore becomes less about owning every public statement and more about designing the system that lets many credible voices speak within a shared strategy.
Marketing remains connected, but no longer owns comms
The move does not separate communications from marketing entirely.
Nadella wrote that Microsoft’s upcoming fall events are an opportunity to bring product story, marketing and communications together in new ways. Colburn will also join chief marketing officer Takeshi Numoto’s leadership team during the interim period.
That detail matters because product launches still require close coordination between brand, product marketing, executives and media relations. Moving the reporting line does not remove those dependencies.
What changes is the center of gravity. The chief communications officer will sit closer to policy, legal and corporate affairs while maintaining working ties to marketing.
For a company operating under sustained scrutiny around AI, competition, data centers, regulation and government relationships, that structure gives corporate communications a direct line into the functions managing many of the issues that can quickly become reputation matters.
What comms leaders can take from the structure
There is no universal answer to whether communications should report into marketing, the CEO, legal, corporate affairs or another function.
The Microsoft move is useful because it makes the trade-off visible. A marketing-aligned structure can keep comms close to products, campaigns and brand priorities. A corporate-affairs structure can put it closer to policy, regulatory risk, executive positioning and stakeholder management.
Microsoft is choosing the latter while preserving formal links back to marketing.
The more consequential part may be the “build in public” direction. If engineers, executives, sellers and partners are expected to become more visible public voices, the communications team’s job expands from managing media relationships to creating principles, coaching and governance for a larger spokesperson network.
That is a structural change comms leaders can examine in their own organizations. The question is whether communications sits close enough to the decisions and risks it must explain, while still having the relationships needed to turn those decisions into coherent public messages.