The news
Ryan Roslansky, Microsoft's (MSFT) executive vice president of LinkedIn and Microsoft 365, will leave the company after nearly 18 years, CEO Satya Nadella announced on October 1, 2026. Roslansky said the next phase of the job requires being in Redmond full time.
Roslansky will stay through the end of the calendar year as an advisor to Nadella and will help with the handover, according to the announcement on Microsoft's corporate blog. The post paired Nadella's message to employees with a personal note from Roslansky.
Nadella did not name a single replacement for the combined role. Instead, Sumit Chauhan and Lan Ye will report to Charles Lamanna, and Jon Friedman will report to Jacob Andreou. Dan Shapero continues as LinkedIn's CEO and Mohak Shroff continues in his current role, with both reporting to Nadella.
In his note, Roslansky wrote that leading the next stage well would mean "being in Redmond full time, every day," while his family's life is in the San Francisco Bay Area, where his youngest daughter just started high school. He wrote that Nadella had asked him a year earlier to help build the future of Microsoft 365.
Nadella credited Roslansky's team with pulling together the product, engineering and design foundations for Microsoft's next phase of work software, in which Office is built fully into Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, and Copilot into Office. The Next Web reported that Nadella also credited Roslansky with the single Copilot app Microsoft unveiled the week before.
Roslansky joined LinkedIn in 2009 and became its CEO in 2020. Under his leadership LinkedIn passed one billion members and its business nearly tripled, according to the Microsoft post, which puts LinkedIn's membership at 1.3 billion. Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016, The Next Web noted.
The numbers
- Roslansky's time at LinkedIn and Microsoft
- Nearly 18 years
- Departure
- End of 2026 (advisor until then)
- LinkedIn members
- 1.3 billion
- LinkedIn business growth with Roslansky as CEO
- Nearly tripled
- LinkedIn revenue growth, year to June (The Next Web)
- 11%
- Microsoft's price for LinkedIn (2016)
- $26.2 billion
Why CEOs should care
For Microsoft 365 customers, the announcement changes no products, prices or contracts. It changes who runs them. Chauhan, Ye and Friedman now report to Lamanna and Andreou, and the single executive who tied LinkedIn and Microsoft 365 together leaves at year-end. CIOs planning Copilot rollouts should ask their Microsoft account teams which executive now owns the Office apps roadmap, and whether features promised in recent months keep their dates. If a renewal is due in the next two quarters, get those answers in writing before you sign.
For CFOs, the issue is spend. Nadella's message describes Office and Copilot being built into each other; if that happens, more of the productivity budget may end up tied to Copilot. Before signing multiyear Copilot commitments, finance teams can ask for roadmap commitments and price protections in writing; a leadership change is a natural moment for product priorities to move.
For HR and recruiting leaders who buy LinkedIn's hiring and learning tools, the signal is continuity: Shapero keeps the CEO job and still reports to Nadella. Boards that treat Microsoft as a critical vendor should still track the pattern of senior turnover at the company in 2026 when they review concentration risk, and ask management how much of the company's own AI plan depends on Microsoft's Copilot roadmap holding steady.
The bigger picture
The exit is the latest in a run of senior changes at Microsoft in 2026. According to The Next Web, gaming chief Phil Spencer and Rajesh Jha, who led the experiences and devices group, have left, security chief Charlie Bell stepped back to a role without a team to manage, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman plans to leave Microsoft's board.
LinkedIn itself has been steady. The Next Web put its revenue growth at 11% in the year to June and said membership grew from 700 million to 1.3 billion under Roslansky. Shapero became LinkedIn's chief executive earlier in 2026 and then cut about 5% of staff, the outlet reported.
What’s next
Roslansky stays until the end of 2026 and has not said what he will do next; his note said the work now passes to leaders set up to take it further. Watch for whether Microsoft names one owner for the Microsoft 365 apps, and for Copilot product and licensing updates in the coming months, which will show whether the new reporting lines change priorities for customers.
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