Julie Larson-Green (born 1962) is the former
chief experience officer (CXO) of the Office Experience Organization at
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
, where she worked 1993 through 2017. She subsequently joined
Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an American experience management company, with co-headquarters in Seattle, Washington, and Provo, Utah, in the United States. The company was founded in 2002 by Scott M. Smith, Ryan Smith, Jared Smith, and Stuart Orgill.
Qualtric ...
as their CXO.
Larson-Green notably managed the implementation of
ribbons
A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mater ...
in
Microsoft Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novemb ...
, replacing the menu-driven interface with context-specific "ribbons" for which she won a technical leadership award in 2013. In addition, she led the efforts to evolve Microsoft's Metro design language (to become known as "Metro Style") to also ship as part of
Windows 8
Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...
, in 2012. "User interface is customer service for the computer."
Early life
Larson-Green grew up in
Maple Falls
Maple Falls is a census-designated place (CDP) in Whatcom County, Washington, United States. The population was 324 at the 2010 census.
Geography
Maple Falls is located on the Mount Baker Highway, east of Bellingham, three miles east of a junct ...
, in
Whatcom County, Washington
Whatcom County is a county located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Washington, bordered by the Canadian Lower Mainland (the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley Regional Districts of British Columbia) to the north, Okanogan Coun ...
.
Education and early career
Larson-Green graduated with a Master's degree in Computer Science Engineering from
Seattle University
Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate prog ...
and a Bachelor's degree in
business administration
Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...
from
Western Washington University
Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a pri ...
. Her first job was in tech support for
Aldus Aldus may refer to:
People
* Aldus Manutius, a Venetian publisher who popularized small personal volumes
* Aldus Manutius the Younger, grandson of Aldus Manutius
Businesses
* Aldine Press, the printing office founded by Aldus Manutius
* Aldus Cor ...
, creator of
PageMaker
Adobe PageMaker (formerly Aldus) is a discontinued desktop publishing computer program introduced in 1985 by the Aldus Corporation on the Apple Macintosh. The combination of the Macintosh's graphical user interface, PageMaker publishing software, ...
desktop publishing software. A self-taught
programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
, Larson-Green completed her
master's degree
A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice. in
software engineering
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development.
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...
and was then recruited as development lead at Aldus.
At Microsoft
In 1993, Larson-Green joined Microsoft as a
program manager
Program Manager is the shell of Windows 3.x and Windows NT 3.x operating systems. This shell exposed a task-oriented graphical user interface (GUI), consisting of ''icons'' (shortcuts for programs) arranged into ''program groups''. It replaced ' ...
for
Visual C++
Microsoft Visual C++ (MSVC) is a compiler for the C, C++ and C++/CX programming languages by Microsoft. MSVC is proprietary software; it was originally a standalone product but later became a part of Visual Studio and made available in both tria ...
.
[
Following Visual C++, she worked on the user experience for IE 3.0 and 4.0 and then, in 1997, moved to the Office team to work on FrontPage, where she got her first group program manager job. She also did a stint on the SharePoint Team Services team when SharePoint was known as "Office.Net."] While in Office, she led UI design for Office XP
Microsoft Office XP (codenamed Office 10) is an Productivity software#Office suite, office suite which was officially revealed in July 2000 by Microsoft for the Microsoft Windows, Windows operating system. Office XP was released to manufacturing ...
, Office 2003
Microsoft Office 2003 (codenamed Office 11) is an office suite developed and distributed by Microsoft for its Microsoft Windows, Windows operating system. Office 2003 was released to manufacturing on August 19, 2003, and was later software releas ...
, and Office 2007
Microsoft Office 2007 (codenamed Office 12) is an office suite for Windows, developed and published by Microsoft. It was officially revealed on March 9, 2006 and was the 12th version of Microsoft Office. It was released to manufacturing on Novemb ...
, as seen in her official Microsoft biography.
After working on Microsoft Office, she oversaw the successful launch of the Microsoft operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
as corporate vice president, program management, Windows Client. She has had between 1,200 and 1,400 program managers, researchers, content managers and other members of the Windows team reporting to her.
In November 2012, Larson-Green was promoted to be the head of all Windows software and hardware engineering, in the wake of the sudden departure of Steven Sinofsky
Steven Jay Sinofsky (born 1965) is a former president of the Windows Division at Microsoft from July 2009 until his resignation on November 13, 2012. He was responsible for the development and marketing of Windows, Internet Explorer, and online s ...
.
Larson-Green was the 2015 winner of the Woman of Vision ABIE Award for Leadership from the Anita Borg Institute
AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institute' ...
.
As part of a Microsoft reorganization
A corporate action is an event initiated by a public company that brings or could bring an actual change to the securities—equity or debt—issued by the company. Corporate actions are typically agreed upon by a company's board of directors ...
in July 2013, Larson-Green was named as the head of the newly formed Devices and Studios Engineering Group. The division oversaw the company's various efforts in hardware, particularly the Xbox One
The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...
and Surface
A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is t ...
tablet. Some gamers reacted to the news with comments that were described as misogynistic.
In February 2014, it was announced that Larson-Green would move to the role of chief experience officer of Microsoft's "My Life & Work" team, a move interpreted by many as making way for Stephen Elop
Stephen Elop (born 31 December 1963) is a Canadian businessman who most recently worked at Australian telecom company Telstra from April 2016. In the past he had worked for Nokia as its first non-Finnish CEO and later as Executive Vice President ...
, joining Microsoft as part of its acquisition of Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...
's devices business, to become head of the devices organization within Microsoft.
In November 2017, Larson-Green left Microsoft to join Utah-based Qualtrics as Chief Experience Officer. She left Qualtrics in February 2021.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Larson-Green, Julie
Microsoft employees
Seattle University alumni
Western Washington University alumni
1962 births
Living people
People from Whatcom County, Washington