Microsoft communications boss Frank Shaw leaving after practically 30 years

Shaw said he’s decided it is time to move on and try new ventures, though he has not decided what is next. He and Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief marketing officer, had been discussing the move for some time and felt now was best, Shaw said in his memo. Shaw plans to stay until the end of the year.

“I remain optimistic about the company mission, the incredible talent on this team, and how much the company depends on us during this critical time,” Shaw said in the memo. “Together, we’ve accomplished amazing things. My gratefulness is endless.”

Shaw, 64, has been in his role for 17 years, and previously served as president at We. Communications for 12 years, where he worked closely with Microsoft’s public relations apparatus. The executive has played a major role in shaping much of how Microsoft communicates to the outside world, including through events, senior executive access, and other matters. He is one of Silicon Valley’s most recognized PR professionals.

Shaw’s departure comes as Microsoft has undergone several waves of changes in the past two years. The company has prioritized growing its Copilot AI assistant and spent billions expanding its cloud computing business to meet demand for AI compute.

During this time, several executives have departed, as chief executive Satya Nadella has reorganized teams around the company’s Copilot goals.

In March, Nadella created a unified Copilot team led by Jacob Andreou, a 33-year-old executive who has had a fast rise. Rajesh Jha, who worked closely with Copilot teams and oversaw Windows products as executive vice president of experiences and devices, announced his retirement in March. Phil Spencer, who served as CEO of gaming and had been at the company for 38 years, also retired earlier this year. Spencer was replaced by Asha Sharma.

In 2025, Microsoft laid off more than 15,000 employees across sales, Xbox, and other departments. In April, it announced its first-ever employee buyout offer, aimed at its most long-tenured employees.

Shaw, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. He has worked in PR since the early 1990s, and he also worked with each of Microsoft’s three chief executives—founder Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Nadella. When Shaw began working for Microsoft in 1997, the company’s business was overwhelmingly based on sales of PC software (shrink-wrapped on 3.5 inch floppy disks) like the Windows 95 operating system and the Office 97 productivity suite . That same year, Microsoft also famously saved Apple by investing $150 million into the struggling Mac maker.

Shaw, who lives in Seattle, has lately spent much of his time advocating for the company’s efforts in AI, shaping the public messaging on its evolving partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic, and defending less successful businesses like Xbox.

Microsoft’s Azure cloud business continues to be the company’s growth engine, having crossed $100 billion in annual revenue in its most recent quarter. Much of that growth has been due to AI demand, with a large part of its business coming from OpenAI. Microsoft has tried to diversify from its longtime partner while diverting computing resources toward improving Copilot.

The company’s AI lab recently unveiled its first reasoning model, MAI-Thinking-1, which it said matches leading models on some software engineering benchmarks, and said its latest coding model is 25% more efficient than its previous model.