Microsoft Israel R&D Chief to Depart After 13 Years

Michal Brverman-Blumenthal, the CEO of Microsoft Israel Research and Development and Corporate Vice President of the global security division, has announced her decision to leave the company after 13 years, including six and a half years as CEO. She will remain in her role until the end of the year, and Microsoft will later announce her successor for the Israeli R&D center.

The Microsoft development center in Israel, established in 1991, was the company's first development center outside the United States. It currently employs approximately 3,000 people, with about half focused on cyber security.

Brverman-Blumenthal's departure follows closely on the heels of Alon Haimovitz, the former CEO of Microsoft Israel, who also resigned a few months prior after four years. While a successor was not immediately named for Haimovitz, Nati Amsterdam from Nvidia was recently announced as the new CEO of Microsoft Israel.

Brverman-Blumenthal joined Microsoft 13 years ago to establish and lead the company's cloud security group in Israel. She later co-founded Microsoft's global cloud security and AI division and became CTO of the unified security division. During her tenure as head of the Israeli R&D center, the number of employees doubled across six sites.

In an email to employees, Brverman-Blumenthal expressed gratitude, stating, "Looking back, what I feel most is gratitude to the people I worked with and immense pride in what we built together. I had the privilege of leading the Israeli development center for the past six and a half years, and this is the part of my journey that I am most proud of. Since October 7th, and during the challenging period that followed, your resilience and perseverance will stay with me for the rest of my life. I leave with deep gratitude and confidence that the best for the Israeli development center is yet to come. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime privilege."