Peggy Johnson to head global business development at Microsoft

Margaret L. (Peggy) Johnson has been named Microsoft’s executive vice president of Business Development on Tuesday. She will be responsible for driving strategic business deals and partnerships across various industries with key customers, strategic innovation partners, OEMs, key accounts, third-party publishers and industry influencers. She will be reporting to the chief executive officer Satya Nadella.

Prior to this role, Johnson spent 24 years at Qualcomm where most recently, she served as executive vice president of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and president of global market development. She was responsible for commercializing new business opportunities and developing strategic relationships for the company. Notably she was responsible for Qualcomm's global marketing organization and oversaw Qualcomm Labs, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., that served as an incubator focused on launching new businesses and products, as well as exploring new market segments for Qualcomm technologies. Johnson also served as a member of Qualcomm's executive committee.

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Satya Nadella said,

Peggy shares our worldview and knows what it takes to drive new growth in mobility and the cloud. Her experience uniquely positions her to lead Microsoft’s business development efforts, and she will be a great addition to our senior leadership team.

During her time at Qualcomm, Johnson held various leadership positions across engineering, sales, marketing and business development, and played an instrumental role in launching the world’s first large-scale mobile app store.

“I’m thrilled to be joining Microsoft at such a pivotal time for the company and the industry,” Johnson said. “The opportunity to build new and surprising partnerships to help Microsoft succeed in a mobile-first, cloud-first world is truly exciting, and I look forward to leading these efforts.”

Prior to joining Qualcomm, Johnson worked as an engineer for General Electric's Military Electronics Division.

Johnson earned her bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from San Diego State University. She represents the United States on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council and serves as a board member for Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.

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