Microsoft reorganizes its Windows and Surface teams under new leaders

Today's surprise and abrupt departure of Panos Panay as the leader of Microsoft's Windows and Surface teams means that the company is making a ton of changes in its organization. That means new leaders and new teams that will have to handle most of Panay's previous responsibilities.

In his email announcing Panay's departure, as posted on The Verge, Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s vice president of experience and devices, went over the new teams and leaders. Yusuf Mehdi, who previously was Microsoft's Corporate Vice President and its Consumer Chief Marketing Officer "will take on the responsibility of leading the Windows and Surface businesses with our OEM and Retail partners" according to Jha's email.

In addition, Pavan Davulury, who previously was the general manager for the Surface division as well as its Corporate Vice President for Windows Silicon and Systems Integration will now be the leader for Microsoft's Windows planning and release management, according to Jha.

He added that the company's "commitment to Surface and MR (mixed reality) remains unchanged." That means we can expect to see new Surface PC products beyond this year. Microsoft is set to show off a number of new Surface hardware product refreshes at its September 21 press event in New York City.

Finally, Jha's email stated that Mikhail Parakhin will be the leader of an all-new Windows and Web Experiences Team. Parakhin was previously Microsoft’s head of Advertising and Web Services, but in the past several months he has offered a lot of commentary and info via his X (formerly Twitter) account about the company's Bing Chat chatbot services.

It definitely will be interesting to see how Panay's departure influences Microsoft's Surface products going forward, along with its plans to improve the Windows OS, particularly as the company continues to push its AI products like Bing Chat and Windows Copilot.

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