John W. Thompson

For other uses, see John Thompson (disambiguation).
John W. Thompson
John W. Thompson
Born
John Wendell Thompson

(1949-04-24) April 24, 1949 (age 75)
Fort Dix, New Jersey, U.S.
EducationFlorida A&M University (BBA, 1971)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MBA, 1983)
Occupation(s)Chair, Microsoft Corporation[1]
Chair, Illumina[2]
Employer(s)IBM (1971–1999)
Symantec (1999–2009)
Microsoft (2014–2021)
Illumina (2021–2023)

John Wendell Thompson (born April 24, 1949)[citation needed] is an American technology executive who was the chair of Microsoft from 2014 until June 2021, and chair of Illumina from 2021 until 2023. He is a former chief executive of Virtual Instruments, a vice-president at IBM and the former chief executive of Symantec. Thompson later became an independent director on the board of Microsoft, and in February 2014, was named chairman.[3] He led the search for Microsoft's next CEO; as a result, Satya Nadella was selected.[4]

  1. ^ "John W. Thompson". Stories.
  2. ^ "Illumina Names John W. Thompson to Its Board of Directors, Bringing More Than 40 Years of Technology Leadership to Illumina". www.businesswire.com. February 20, 2017.
  3. ^ "Microsoft Board names Satya Nadella as CEO". Microsoft. February 4, 2014.
  4. ^ Hughes, Alan (September 2004). "The best CEO in Silicon Valley: John Thompson has transformed Symantec into a multibillion-dollar security software juggernaut". Black Enterprise. Retrieved 2009-01-28.