Kellie Green

As 2026 begins, I find myself reflecting on 2025—a significant milestone marking 20 years at Microsoft. This isn't an ending or a moment of arrival; rather, a reminder of how much is still evolving—especially right now. 2025 highlighted a generational shift in how we build, lead, and grow Engineering talent. While AI is accelerating many aspects, the true transformation lies in how we redesign work, decision-making, and leadership in a world where talent is constantly in motion. Here are a few lessons that shape my leadership approach: 🔹 Skills > labels: Focusing on what people can do leads to better decisions, rather than just their titles. 🔹 AI elevates leaders; it doesn’t replace judgment: The real value lies in clarity, signal, and speed where human decisions are still essential. 🔹 Mobility is a growth engine: Visibility and a stigma-free environment fuel retention and innovation. 🔹 Psychological safety is performance infrastructure: Clear ownership, honest escalation, and role clarity unlock scalability. Two decades have not brought certainty but rather perspective. Each major inflection point has required as much unlearning as learning, and this one is no different. Looking ahead to 2026, I am energized by the work before us: advancing a skills-first, growth-first talent model, scaling internal mobility effectively for Engineering, and strengthening leadership readiness for future challenges. I am grateful for the partners, leaders, and teams who sought clarity, embraced experimentation, and raised the bar in 2025. The journey continues, and I am more motivated than ever by the path ahead.

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One of the best pieces of advice I ever received from a mentor was simple: “Make space at the table, and then help others to pull up a seat.” I have often remembered that throughout my career, and in my role today, I do the same. Create room for growth and amplify new voices. 🌱 It’s all about recognizing potential and making sure it doesn’t go unnoticed. Because the future of technology will be shaped by bold thinkers. 💡 Here’s what I try to focus on to empower the next generation: 🔹 Make time: Schedule regular check-ins, even informal ones 🔹 Give visibility: Invite them to join key meetings or present ideas 🔹 Encourage curiosity: Let them ask hard questions, even if there’s no easy answer 🔹 Create safe a environment: Let people fail, learn, and try again 🔹 Celebrate progress: Not just outcomes How are you empowering future leaders today? #WeAreLenovo #Leadership #Mentorship #PeopleFirst

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We had the privilege of hosting Quentin Clark — our board member and Managing Director at General Catalyst — during our recent leadership offsite at Eightfold’s headquarters in Santa Clara. Every moment of this session was filled with profound insights — the kind that make you pause and rethink assumptions. I tried to capture a few, though I’ll admit that taking notes while being genuinely awestruck is not easy! What are the three ills to ward off as companies grow: 1. Companies can get complacent. Current success can hinder future success. A very counterintuitive point: If you exceed the expectation and beat the plan, still be curious. “It still betrays!”.  2. Lowering the hiring bar. B-players hire C-players.  3. Not protecting the brand. What makes Eightfold such a hot prospect?  1. Eightfold was the first one to figure out how to apply ML for solving enterprise business problems - 9 years ago. A huge head start and a moat.  2. Eightfold is building a System of Agents in a world still stuck with Systems of Record. Traditional enterprise software makes you work — you have to pedal. Agentic AI flips that model: the system works for you. It’s a driverless engine, like Waymo.  3. AI used to be an unproven tech a few yrs ago, almost like selling snake oil. Today the AI tailwind is very real and Eightfold is in a position to build on the success rapidly. With so much money invested in AI, will there be a good ROI?  AI is bigger than the Mobile revolution, the Internet, and even the Mainframe era. It surpasses Integrated Circuits in its reach. Think about it — everyone today carries at least five IC-powered devices: a smartphone, a smartwatch, a health ring, earbuds, and often a laptop or tablet. AI will be an even more integral part of our personal and work lives. It took databases seven years to achieve a 10X leap in performance. Large Language Models did it in just three quarters. The acceleration curve of AI isn’t evolutionary — it’s exponential.   What about humans in an Agentic-AI world? Far from diminishing the value of people, Agentic AI raises it. As agents take on the repetitive, administrative, and mechanical tasks, humans are freed to focus on what only they can do — creating, problem-solving, and innovating. In this world, the regard for talent actually increases, because the leverage of each person is amplified. 

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Don't be a "closer" - On Leadership, Silence, and a Collapse of Creative Energy In one company, every meeting began with ideas and ended with silence. The leader, impatient with ambiguity, would interrupt halfway through a discussion, or even a team member’s sentence, declaring something like: “We’re done here. Let’s move on.” or “I think that’s strategic, let’s just focus on today.” At first, people argued back. Then they stopped. Soon, the meetings were efficient — and entirely barren. The codebase grew quiet. The architecture ossified. The best engineers stopped suggesting improvements and quietly left. Those who remained learned the new rule: never say more than what’s safe. Years later, the leader wondered why innovation had dried up, why teams delivered exactly what was asked — and nothing more. They’d built a system optimised for compliance, not creation. Part of a Software Enchiridion ❤️ #softwaredevelopment #leadership https://lnkd.in/e6WHgD4b

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As #Women’sHistoryMonth comes to a close, I want to take a minute to reflect on the conversations I had this month spanning different women groups at Microsoft across the globe. I often say, in mentorship, the mentor gets just as much out of the conversation as the mentee and that has remained true for me. Here’s my three takeaways: 1. Small moments of allyship can go a long way. Be generous with your time, knowledge and support. When women uplift women, we succeed together. After one event it was shared that, “when the women left the event, they felt taller.” This should be our goal after every meeting we have with any member of the team and hearing this made me feel a little taller as well! 2. Practice active listening, especially with yourself. I’ll give you an example of this in action. When you are making a big decision about your career or anything in life, how do you decide what to do? You know that gut feeling? Listen to it. Or, use my trick and flip a coin. Seriously - if you chose heads and it lands on heads and your heart sinks, you have your answer. It’s so important to listen and believe in yourself. 3. Focus on who you are, not what your title says. When I moved from the Azure Core organization to Commercial Solution Areas, I had a difficult time with the shift in label – product engineering leader to a sales leader. Being an engineer has always been key part of who I am and I worried that I wouldn’t be seen as one anymore based upon my role and title. But, the truth is, I will always be an engineer regardless of how people view me or what organization I sit in. We as women need to stop seeking external validation and be ok with the internal validation we give ourselves. Women’s History Month is a moment in time, but it’s important to honor and celebrate the achievements of women all year long. By uplifting one another and learning from each other, we can forge a path to a more inclusive and innovative future. I am grateful for this opportunity to reflect and share, and I look forward to continuing these important conversations. What’s one thing you took away from Women’s History Month this year?

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