Stephen Elop at the Windows Phone 8 launch event
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Confirmed: Former Nokia chief Stephen Elop will run Microsoft’s Xbox and tablet businesses

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

Update [9:40 am 2/25/14]: A spokesperson for Microsoft confirmed the report.

The former boss of Nokia, Stephen Elop, is taking over the Microsoft division that includes the Xbox, Surface, entertainment, and games businesses.

Microsoft picked Elop up as an executive when it acquired Nokia’s device and services division. Elop was a contender to take over the company, but Satya Nadella got the job of succeeding CEO Steve Ballmer instead.

Now Elop will replace Julie Larson-Green, who will move over to a new assignment. In a leaked memo to TechCrunch, Larson-Green said that she will head the “My Life & Work” team in the applications and services group. Her title will be chief experience officer.

Elop, meanwhile, will run Microsoft’s Devices and Studios division, which includes both games and the Xbox hardware platform. Larson-Green had a short tenure of just seven months being in charge of the games business, among other duties. She inherited it after Don Mattrick left Microsoft last year to become CEO of social-games publisher Zynga. Under her watch, Microsoft launched the Xbox One video game console, the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets, and the new Xbox music and video services. He will also be in charge of the mobile devices acquired from Nokia.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.