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Microsoft has announced a leadership change at the top of its cybersecurity organization. The company has appointed former Google Cloud president Hayete Gallot as its new cybersecurity chief to strengthen its enterprise and cloud security. The former Microsoft employee, Gallot, left in 2024 to join Google Cloud.
Microsoft’s blog post confirmed that Hayete Gallot will lead its security division as executive vice president. Charlie Bell, who had been leading Microsoft’s security team, will shift into a role focused on engineering quality.
CEO Satya Nadella said in a message to employees, “Charlie and I have been planning this transition for some time, given his desire to move from being an org leader to being an IC engineer. And I love how energized he is to practice this craft here day in and day out!” Nadella also added that Gallot’s background in both product and customer-facing roles made her suitable for the job.
“Hayete joins us from Google where she was President, Customer Experience for Google Cloud. Before that, she spent more than 15 years at Microsoft with senior leadership roles across engineering and sales, playing multiple critical roles in building two of our biggest franchises – Windows and Office, leading our commercial solution areas’ go-to-market efforts. And she was instrumental in the design and implementation of our Security Solution Area. She brings an ethos that combines product building with value realization for customers, which is critical right now,” Nadella stated.
Gallot first joined Microsoft in 2009, spending more than ten years in strategy, business development, and sales. Before leaving in 2024, she was a corporate vice president involved in selling products across several areas, including security.
Gallot joined Google Cloud as president of customer experience. That role placed her close to enterprise customers and their concerns around reliability, data protection, and service quality. In her new engagement at Microsoft, Gallot will report directly to CEO Nadella. She will oversee Microsoft’s overall security strategy, covering internal systems as well as products used by businesses and consumers.
Ales Holecek will also move into a new role as chief architect for security and will report to Gallot. Bell will continue to report directly to Nadella and work closely with senior leaders across cloud and AI teams. He joined Microsoft in 2021 after spending more than two decades at Amazon, where he held senior roles within AWS. During his time at Microsoft, Bell led a security team of around 10,000 people and pushed security higher up the company’s internal priority list.
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During Bell’s tenure, Microsoft experienced prominent cyberattacks. In 2023, Microsoft said China breached US government officials’ email accounts, leading to a critical Department of Homeland Security report.
This latest reshuffle comes as Microsoft faces investor pressure over slower Azure growth and broader uncertainty around how AI will impact its core software business. It also suggests that Microsoft wants tighter coordination between security planning and product development, across Windows, Azure, and the growing AI services.
