LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner to pass the CEO torch to Ryan Roslansky

Microsoft’s LinkedIn business is getting a new CEO. Ryan Roslansky, the current Senior Vice President of Products User Experience, is replacing Weiner and will be reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Microsoft announced the succession plan on February 5. The moves take effect on June 1, 2020.

Roslansky is in charge of setting and executing the global product strategy for LinkedIn, according to (what else?) his own LinkedIn profile. He has been with LinkedIn for almost 11 years.

Weiner will become Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, much the same way founding LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman became Executive Chairman when Weiner became CEO. Weiner joined LinkedIn in December 2008 from Accell Partners and Greylock Partners, where he was an executive in residence. He also previously served as executive vice president of Yahoo’s Network Division.

At $26.2 billion, LinkedIn remains the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history. When Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016, officials said repeatedly that this time, things would be different. Microsoft had learned from past acquisition mistakes and would take a hands-off approach to managing LinkedIn. In addition to making Weiner the head of the integration committee, Microsoft basically has allowed LinkedIn to focus on growing its business and has delivered relatively few integrations between the two companies’ products.

LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman joined the Microsoft board of directors in 2017.

Last year, Microsoft did announce that LinkedIn will be moving off its own cloud and onto Azure over the next several years. Over the past couple of years, Microsoft moved LinkedIn’s 14,000 employees off Google services and to Office 365, as well.

Article source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linkedins-jeff-weiner-to-pass-the-ceo-torch-to-ryan-roslansky/#ftag=RSSbaffb68