Xbox’s first COO Helen Chiang leaves Microsoft after 21 years, months into role

Microsoft has lost Xbox’s first chief operating officer. Helen Chiang left the company after 21 years, about three months after she was promoted to the newly created position in July. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced the departure in an internal memo, but Microsoft did not explain why Chiang was leaving.“Helen Chiang is leaving Microsoft today. I’m grateful for her years of service and wish her well,” Sharma told employees in a memo reviewed by The Verge. She did not name a replacement but indicated that Xbox would retain COO leadership. “We’ll share more on COO leadership as plans are finalised,” she added.Microsoft also declined to explain the circumstances surrounding her exit. “We don’t discuss individual personnel matters,” Xbox communications vice president Kari Perez told The Verge. “We’re grateful for Helen’s years of service and wish her well.”As COO, Chiang was responsible for bringing Xbox’s content, hardware, platform and services businesses under one operating structure. Other Xbox leaders will divide her duties until the company finalises its plans for the position.Why Xbox created its first COO positionChiang was promoted as part of a wider reorganisation that Xbox described as a business reset. At the time, Sharma said the new position would carry “end-to-end P&L responsibility across content, hardware, platform, and services.”P&L refers to profit-and-loss responsibility, meaning Chiang was expected to oversee how those parts of Xbox earned money, controlled costs and made investment decisions.Sharma said Chiang would “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.”Her departure does not appear to end the COO position. For now, other Xbox leaders will handle her immediate responsibilities while the company finalises its plans.Chiang joined Microsoft in 2005 as a product manager for its Streets & Trips mapping software and moved to Xbox in 2007. She joined the Minecraft team in 2014, later became its studio head, and served as corporate vice president of the franchise. GamesRadar reported that her Xbox career included work on Xbox Live and leadership of Mojang and Minecraft.