Julie Larson-Green
Larson-Green at Microsoft in 2008
Born1962 (age 61–62)
Maple Falls, Washington, U.S.
Alma materSeattle University
Western Washington University
SpouseGareth Green
Children2

Julie Larson-Green (born 1962) is the former chief experience officer (CXO) of the Office Experience Organization at Microsoft,[1] where she worked 1993 through 2017.[2] She subsequently joined Qualtrics as their CXO.[3]

Larson-Green notably managed the implementation of ribbons in Microsoft Office 2007, replacing the menu-driven interface with context-specific "ribbons" for which she won a technical leadership award in 2013. In addition, she led the efforts to evolve Microsoft's Metro design language (to become known as "Metro Style") to also ship as part of Windows 8, in 2012.[4][5][6][7][8]

Early life

Larson-Green grew up in Maple Falls, in Whatcom County, Washington.[9]

Education and early career

Larson-Green graduated with a Master's degree in Computer Science Engineering from Seattle University and a Bachelor's degree in business administration from Western Washington University. Her first job was in tech support for Aldus, creator of PageMaker desktop publishing software. A self-taught programmer, Larson-Green completed her master's degree in software engineering and was then recruited as development lead at Aldus.

At Microsoft

In 1993, Larson-Green joined Microsoft as a program manager for Visual C++.[7]

Following Visual C++, she worked on the user experience for IE 3.0 and 4.0 and then, in 1997, moved to the Office team to work on FrontPage, where she got her first group program manager job. She also did a stint on the SharePoint Team Services team when SharePoint was known as "Office.Net."[7][10] While in Office, she led UI design for Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2007, as seen in her official Microsoft biography.

After working on Microsoft Office, she oversaw the successful launch of the Microsoft operating system Windows 7 as corporate vice president, program management, Windows Client. She has had between 1,200 and 1,400 program managers, researchers, content managers and other members of the Windows team reporting to her.

In November 2012, Larson-Green was promoted to be the head of all Windows software and hardware engineering, in the wake of the sudden departure of Steven Sinofsky.[11]

Larson-Green was the 2015 winner of the Woman of Vision ABIE Award for Leadership from the Anita Borg Institute.[12][13]

As part of a Microsoft reorganization in July 2013, Larson-Green was named as the head of the newly formed Devices and Studios Engineering Group. The division oversaw the company's various efforts in hardware, particularly the Xbox One and Surface tablet.[14] Some gamers reacted to the news with comments that were described as misogynistic.[15][16][17][18]

In February 2014, it was announced that Larson-Green would move to the role of chief experience officer of Microsoft's "My Life & Work" team, a move interpreted by many as making way for Stephen Elop, joining Microsoft as part of its acquisition of Nokia's devices business, to become head of the devices organization within Microsoft.[19]

In November 2017, Larson-Green left Microsoft to join Utah-based Qualtrics as Chief Experience Officer.[20] She left Qualtrics in February 2021.[21]

References

  1. ^ "Working Geek: Microsoft Chief Experience Officer Julie Larson-Green shares her productivity secrets". 2016-04-06. Archived from the original on 2016-10-08. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
  2. ^ Shead, Sam. "Microsoft veteran Julie Larson-Green is leaving". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 2018-09-08. Retrieved 2019-02-08.
  3. ^ Bort, Julia. "The 39 most powerful female engineers of 2018". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 1 July 2020. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  4. ^ Gara, Tom (July 11, 2013). "Julie Larson-Green: Microsoft's New Hardware Chief, Mother Of The Ribbon". Wall Street Journal (blog). Archived from the original on 15 July 2013. Retrieved 14 July 2013.
  5. ^ Tate, Ryan (2013-07-11). "The Rise of Julie Larson-Green, the Heir Apparent at Microsoft". WIRED. Archived from the original on 2013-07-14. Retrieved 14 July 2013.
  6. ^ Owen Thomas (November 12, 2012). "Meet the two women now running Microsoft's most important business". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 15 November 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  7. ^ a b c Sean Hollister (November 13, 2012). "Meet Julie Larson-Green, the woman who will lead Windows". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 5, 2017. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
  8. ^ Austin Carr (January 25, 2014). "Windows 8: The Boldest, Biggest Redesign In Microsoft's History". Archived from the original on February 25, 2016. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  9. ^ Janet I. Tu (November 13, 2012), "Sinofsky's successor at Microsoft has the people touch", The Seattle Times, archived from the original on January 27, 2013, retrieved November 14, 2012
  10. ^ Claudine Beaumont (6 November 2009). "I'm Julie Larson-Green and Windows 7 was my idea". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 1 October 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  11. ^ "Microsoft Announces Leadership Changes to Drive Next Wave of Products" (Press release). Microsoft. 2012-11-12. Archived from the original on 2014-02-10. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  12. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-08-08. Retrieved 2017-08-07.((cite web)): CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  13. ^ "ABIE Awards - Anita Borg Institute". Archived from the original on 2017-08-07. Retrieved 2017-08-07.
  14. ^ Bass, Dina. "Bodyslams at Microsoft Prepared Larson-Green for Overhaul" Archived 2014-03-04 at the Wayback Machine Bloomberg News July 12, 2013
  15. ^ Greenfield, Rebecca. "Gamers Can't Handle the New Female Head at Xbox" Archived 2013-09-28 at the Wayback Machine, The Atlantic Wire, July 11, 2013
  16. ^ Ross, Winston (24 July 2013). "Game On: A Woman Takes the Helm of X-Box. Misogyny ensues". Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 22 September 2013. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
  17. ^ Sampson, Ted (12 July 2013). "Sexist gamers can't stand that a woman now heads Xbox". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
  18. ^ Beusman, Callie (12 July 2013). "The New Head of Xbox is a WOMAN. Everyone REMAIN CALM". Jezebel. Archived from the original on 25 November 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2013.
  19. ^ Mary Jo Foley (2014-02-25). "Microsoft Executive VP Julie Larson-Green moves from devices to services". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 2014-10-25. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
  20. ^ Konrad, Alex. "Longtime Microsoft Exec Julie Larson-Green Joins Utah Unicorn Qualtrics As CXO". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2019-03-08. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  21. ^ "Julie Larson-Green retires as Qualtrics CXO after IPO; Asha Sharma joins Instacart as COO; and more". GeekWire. 2021-02-05. Archived from the original on 2021-04-01. Retrieved 2021-04-04.

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