Microsoft veteran Joe Belfiore to step down after 32 years

Joe Belfiore, a Microsoft veteran, has announced his retirement from the company after 32 years. Known as the ‘face of the Windows phone’ Belfiore was the head-of-product and co-manager of the Office team in his last role. Belfiore and Microsoft management announced his departure on October 27 via internal e-mails.

In a tweet on Friday, he said: “Today, I shared with my team that after 32 fantastic years, I will be retiring from Microsoft. I’m staying on until summer to help with the transition, then focus on the two kids still at home and the 1 who just started college.”

Belfiore started working with Microsoft in 1990 as part of the Windows 95 team. He also worked on the Internet Explorer, Windows XP, Microsoft eHome division, Entertainment & Devices, Windows Phone and Windows 10 teams in management roles over the years, as per Belfiore's LinkedIn profile.  

In 2015, Belfore announced he was taking a one-year leave of absence to spend more time with his family.

Two years later, Microsoft admitted that the software giant will no longer develop new features or hardware for Windows 10 mobiles, after struggling to sell Windows smartphones as Google’s Android and Apple iOS Operating Systems (OS) started dominating the market.

In 2020, Belfiore took another leave of absence to travel with his family. After that, he returned to Microsoft to work on the Office Experience Group (OXO) on cross-platform experiences and services.

He led that team along with Corporate Vice President Ales Holecek. His team is responsible for work in apps including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, plus shared components and new additions to the core Office family such as Loop (the app and the components), Designer, To-Do, Planner, Project, Forms, Stream, Whiteboard and more, according to Belfiore’s bio.

Microsoft has said that Holecek will remain as CVP of the Office Product Group. Corporate Vice President Sumit Chauhan will be partnering with Holecek as the new co-leader of the group and will report directly to executive vice president of experiences and devices Rajesh Jha. Current vice president of product David Gainer will be promoted to Corporate Vice President and become Office "Head of Product," reporting to Holecek.