Xbox’s Newly-Announced COO to Leave Microsoft After 21 Years

Image Source: Pure Xbox

In a bit of industry news, it’s been revealed that Xbox’s Chief Operating Officer Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft after 21 years at the company. The details were first shared by The Verge in a report late last week.

Chiang worked in various notable roles during her time at Microsoft, such as Director of Xbox Live, Chief of Staff at Microsoft Studios, and a whole bunch of roles on the Minecraft team including Studio Head.

She ended up becoming the first Xbox Chief Operating Officer back in July, but is now leaving the role unexpectedly. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma reportedly shared a brief internal memo last Thursday:

“Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today. I’m grateful for her years of service and wish her well,” said Sharma.

Sharma apparently noted that she’ll talk more about filling the COO role when plans are finalised, while Microsoft declined to “discuss individual personnel matters” when asked about the reasons behind Chiang’s departure.

For what it’s worth, Eurogamer is reporting that she may have been “terminated for policy violations”.

“A verified source familiar with the situation separately told Eurogamer that Helen Chiang had allegedly been “terminated for policy violations”. Eurogamer has not been able to independently verify this claim.”

As mentioned, the Chief Operating Officer was a new role that was created as part of the “Xbox Reset” back in July, and here’s how Asha Sharma described it back then:

For the first time, we are establishing a Chief Operating Officer with end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services. Helen Chiang has been promoted to this role and will report directly to me. Over nearly two decades at XBOX, Helen has helped build some of our most important businesses, from XBOX Live to leading Mojang and the Minecraft franchise. She will bring our businesses together under one operating model, making sure we make clear investment decisions, learn from our successes and failures, and hold ourselves accountable for results.

We’ll obviously let you know when we get more details on what’s next for the Chief Operating Officer role, and our best wishes go out to Helen Chiang in all of her future endeavours.