Norm Judah is Chief Technology Officer of Worldwide Services at Microsoft, focusing on technical strategy, innovation, technical communities and enterprise services strategy. Acting as the technical conscience for the services organisation, Norm insists on technical excellence and quality assurance across the business. His ability to reach into his global constituency is proven by frequent and measurable feedback with the appropriate product groups and development teams. Driving process focused on customer’s cross product solution scenarios and major design reviews, Norm champions tools and methods that result in reducing risk while also assuring high quality delivery. Norm is passionate about the growth and health of the worldwide technical communities and leverages his team to drive quality and build a strong community connection for the Microsoft customer-facing field.
The Chief Technical Officer’s Office serves a vital role supporting Microsoft Worldwide Services both strategically and operationally. From a strategic perspective: the Chief Technical Officer’s Office determines the organisation’s technical strategy, setting product and technology direction, and operationally drives technical readiness, quality assurance and delivery excellence in the field. Norm is also the executive sponsor and host of TechReady, Microsoft’s internal vehicle for broad technical readiness for the field communities.
Prior to his current role, Norm played a key part in the newly formed Platforms, Technology and Strategy Group, reporting into the Chief Technical Officer-Business Platforms. He held the title of Corporate Vice President of Business Development, responsible for the incubation, development and delivery of Web services such as UDDI, and the integration of the .NET platform through managing strategic partnerships with providers and consumers of business applications. This included managing the relationships with key partners, including SAP as well as strategic customer projects.
As Vice President of Business Development, Norm also engaged in the establishment of the Business Applications Division and the acquisition of Great Plains Software. Previously he was Director of Enterprise Program Management in the Developer Division and General Manager of the Enterprise Connectivity Group, managing several product groups, including the Host Integration and Repository product units.
When he joined Microsoft in 1990, Judah was part of the start-up team for Microsoft Consulting Services, and the first architect, where he later became Director of Technology. His group was responsible for providing architectural guidance, tools, methodologies, technical training and quality programs to the worldwide Microsoft consulting practices. Norm also worked closely with IT departments both internally and with customers. As Director of Core Technology for Microsoft's Information Technology Group he was responsible for the delivery of Microsoft's internal IT infrastructure and business applications.
Prior to joining Microsoft in 1990, Judah worked for Imperial Oil Limited, the Canadian affiliate of Exxon Corporation, where he architected and developed leading edge transaction processing systems and real-time distributed systems.
Collectively, Norm has more than 30 years of experience in the systems industry, most of which has been spent trying to simplify and streamline the way business applications are built through well defined application architectures. This is fuelled by a passion to drive scenario based product planning based on working closely with customers and their applications.
Judah holds a Masters of Applied Science from the University of Toronto, Canada and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. |
