Microsoft shifts communications function to Brad Smith's corporate affairs organization

Microsoft is restructuring its communications function, moving it out of marketing and into the Corporate, External and Legal Affairs organization headed by vice chair and president Brad Smith, according to a report by ContentGrip citing internal emails from CEO Satya Nadella and Smith first obtained by GeekWire.

The change places corporate communications in the same leadership structure as legal, regulatory, antitrust and government-relations functions — areas described by ContentGrip as handling "some of Microsoft's most consequential external issues."

Interim leadership and the search for a new CCO

Brent Colburn, Microsoft's vice president of global public affairs, will take over as interim communications leader and report to Smith. Colburn had previously announced plans to leave Microsoft in October but will now remain through December. He is not a candidate for the permanent role, according to the report.

Frank X. Shaw, who has led Microsoft's communications organization for more than 17 years, will step away from day-to-day responsibilities and advise Smith and Colburn during the transition. Microsoft is searching internally and externally for its next chief communications officer. ContentGrip reports the permanent CCO is also expected to report to Smith.

During the interim period, Colburn will also join chief marketing officer Takeshi Numoto's leadership team, preserving a formal working link between communications and marketing.

Nadella pushes for broader employee voice

The structural change is accompanied by a broader directive from Nadella on how Microsoft should communicate publicly. 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," signaling that engineers, sellers, partners and other employees should play a larger role in telling the company's story.

Smith echoed the direction, indicating Microsoft will likely have more employees and executives acting as part of the company's public voice, including on social media, according to ContentGrip.

ContentGrip notes that Nadella also referenced Microsoft's upcoming fall events as an opportunity to bring product story, marketing and communications together in new ways, indicating the two functions remain operationally connected despite the reporting-line change.

Why the structure matters

ContentGrip's analysis frames the shift as consequential for a company operating under scrutiny around artificial intelligence, competition, data centers and government relationships, arguing the new structure "gives corporate communications a direct line into the functions managing many of the issues that can quickly become reputation matters." The outlet notes there is no universal answer to where communications should report, but that Microsoft's choice makes the trade-off between a marketing-aligned and a corporate-affairs-aligned structure visible for other organizations to examine.