Editing Microsoft (section)

===Board of directors===
The company is run by a [[board of directors]] made up of mostly company outsiders, as is customary for publicly traded companies. Members of the board of directors as of December 2023 are [[Satya Nadella]], [[Reid Hoffman]], Hugh Johnston, Teri List, [[Sandi Peterson]], [[Penny Pritzker]], Carlos Rodriguez, [[Charles Scharf]], [[John W. Stanton]], [[John W. Thompson]], [[Emma Walmsley]] and [[Padmasree Warrior]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://news.microsoft.com/leadership/?section=board-members |title=Microsoft Leadership |date=March 20, 2017 |publisher=Microsoft |access-date=July 31, 2020}}</ref>

Board members are elected every year at the annual shareholders' meeting using a majority vote system. There are four committees within the board that oversee more specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee, which handles accounting issues with the company including auditing and reporting; the Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other employees of the company; the Governance and Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters including the nomination of the board; and the Regulatory and Public Policy Committee, which includes legal/antitrust matters, along with privacy, trade, digital safety, artificial intelligence, and environmental sustainability.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Microsoft Corporation Corporate Governance |url=https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor/corporate-governance/board-of-directors.aspx |publisher=Microsoft |access-date=July 31, 2020}}</ref>

On March 13, 2020, Gates announced that he is leaving the board of directors of Microsoft and [[Berkshire Hathaway]] to focus more on his philanthropic efforts. According to Aaron Tilley of ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' this is "marking the biggest boardroom departure in the tech industry since the death of longtime rival and Apple Inc. co-founder [[Steve Jobs]]."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-gates-to-leave-boards-of-microsoft-and-berkshire-hathaway-11584135172|title=Bill Gates to Leave Boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway|first=Aaron|last=Tilley|newspaper=Wall Street Journal|date=March 13, 2020|via=www.wsj.com}}</ref>

On January 13, 2022, ''The Wall Street Journal'' reported that Microsoft's board of directors plans to hire an external [[law firm]] to review its [[sexual harassment]] and [[gender discrimination]] policies, and to release a summary of how the company handled past allegations of misconduct against Bill Gates and other corporate executives.<ref>{{cite news |last=Tilley |first=Aaron |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-board-to-review-companys-sexual-harassment-and-gender-discrimination-policies-11642107601 |title=Microsoft Board to Review Company's Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination Policies |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |date=January 13, 2022 |access-date=January 14, 2022 }}</ref>