Microsoft today announced that Darren Hardman will join the company on May 2nd, 2023 as the EMEA Industry Leader and Corporate Vice President, reporting to Microsoft EMEA President Ralph Haupter.
A seasoned innovation leader, Hardman most recently served as the AWS Lead for UK and Ireland, and prior to that, as Avanade’s EMEA President. In his new role, Hardman will lead the team in advancing the strategy and execution around key industry customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Hardman’s appointment comes as Microsoft continues accelerating efforts to support and co-innovate with industry customers and partners.
In the face of continued economic headwinds and market uncertainty, all industries have turned to digital technologies to build resilience and agility while achieving greater efficiencies. In addition, the push for greater sustainability, the increasing importance of supply chain resilience and changing employee expectations are critical variables spurring businesses to become even more data-led. Hardman, as a high-value hire, is part of Microsoft’s commitment to helping Enterprise customers transform confidently and quickly to address these challenges.
Further, the company continues evolving its industry cloud offerings, engineered to decrease time to value and empower customers to transform on their own terms. Spanning several sectors including retail, manufacturing, FSI, health and non-profit Microsoft’s industry clouds bring the Azure platform and Microsoft tools together with common data models, workflows, APIs, and industry-specific components and standards. In fact, these cloud offerings incorporate industry-recognized standards from edge to cloud, with more than 90 certifications and more than 35 industry-specific compliance offerings.
“I am absolutely thrilled to step into the EMEA Industry Lead role at Microsoft. The approach Microsoft is taking to help industry customers transform perfectly aligns with my own ethos around the importance of maintaining a total focus on customer success. It’s unbelievably exciting to see the co-innovation that’s being driven with businesses like Mercedes, retailer Żabka and Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling Company.
With today’s economic pressures, the urgency for entire industries to transform at scale has never been greater. We need to truly understand a customer’s marketplace, the challenges they face and the opportunities that have yet to be unlocked. I look forward to hitting the ground running and work with this amazing team.”
— Darren Hardman, Microsoft EMEA Industry Lead
