The power players at Microsoft who helped Satya Nadella pull off a startling turnaround

Scott Guthrie is, by and large, Nadella's right hand man.

He's charge of Microsoft's cloud computing platform, Azure, as well as all of its enterprise software and services. Those are Microsoft's fastest-growing businesses, making him a key player.

Azure is taking on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud in the lucrative cloud computing market. Right now, Azure is the second-place player to the market-leading Amazon Web Services— but Azure revenue last quarter was up 98% from the year-ago period, according to Microsoft's latest earnings report.

He's been at Microsoft for over two decades, but is perhaps best known among developers for his work in creating the open source framework ASP.NET.

Phil Spencer is in charge of Microsoft's gaming efforts, including the Xbox One console and games on Windows 10. He's also in overall charge of Minecraft, the smash-hit phenomenon that Microsoft purchased for $2.5 billion.

And Microsoft is taking gaming seriously: As of last year, Spencer was promoted to the title of executive VP, meaning he now reports directly to CEO Nadella.

And he has ambitious plans to take on Sony's PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch — notably, by introducing Xbox Game Pass, a $10/month service that gives Netflix-style unlimited access to a growing list of games.

Terry Myerson is in charge of Microsoft Windows — still the most popular PC operating system in the world.

Also under his purview are bigger bets for Microsoft, including the Surface line of desktop and laptop computers, as well as the HoloLens augmented reality headset. Plus, he's in charge of many key tools that enterprises use to manage their Windows PCs, including InTune and Advanced Threat Protection.

Myerson joined Microsoft in 1997 after the company acquired his software company, Intersé.

Peggy Johnson is Microsoft's "dealmaker-in-chief." She helped lead the $26 billion dollar acquisition of LinkedIn. Elsewhere in Silicon Valley, she's masterminded many of Microsoft's venture capital investments in startups.

Nadella hired Johnson in 2014, not long after he was named CEO. He wanted Johnson to spearhead partnerships that would see Microsoft cooperate with outside companies. That's resulted in big acquisitions like LinkedIn, as well as partnerships with firms like Dun & Bradstreet.

Before Microsoft, Johnson worked at chipmaker Qualcomm for 24 years, serving as a member of Qualcomm’s Executive Committee.

Hood joined Microsoft in 2002 after a stint and Goldman Sachs and quickly rose through the ranks.

At one time, Hood served as chief financial officer of Microsoft’s Business Division. In that role, she helped oversee the acquisitions of Skype and Yammer. She was promoted to CFO of the entire company in 2013.

Now, she plays a crucial role managing Microsoft's considerable investments in cloud computing and data centers, which requires big spending in both real estate and technology. Plus, she's been key in the company's efforts to reorient businesses like Microsoft Office around subscription-based revenue models, rather than selling boxed software.

Harry Shum is responsible for Microsoft's overall AI strategy — an area that Nadella sees as core to Microsoft's growth.

He oversees search engine Bing and the Cortana virtual assistant, as well as the Microsoft Research labs. His team's work gets integrated with software and hardware all over the company, as Microsoft Office, Windows, and even the Xbox are getting juiced up with artificially-intelligent smarts.

Nadella believes that Microsoft's focus on AI can set it apart from rivals like Amazon and Google. And Shum is in charge of making that happen.

As director of HR, Kathleen Hogan helped put Microsoft's expanded family leave policy into place last year. And in December, Hogan played a part in Microsoft's decision to remove provisions from employee contracts that could limit their ability to sue the company over sexual harassment claims.

In other words, Hogan is largely responsible for stewarding Microsoft through a post-#MeToo world.

Before Microsoft, Hogan worked at Oracle and consulting firm McKinsey and Company.

Brad Smith is responsible for Microsoft's legal affairs, including Microsoft's stance on public policy issues.

He's been crucial player in Microsoft's interactions with the Trump administration, including coming out against Trump's proposed travel ban in 2017. He's also advocated for a "Digital Geneva Convention," or an agreement between nations on the limits of cyberwarfare.

In 2013, Smith was named as one of the most influential lawyers in the U.S. by the National Law Journal.

Jeff Weiner is the CEO of LinkedIn, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $26.2 billion.

In an unusual move, Weiner was actually allowed to lead the integration of LinkedIn and Microsoft — usually, it's the buyer who handles that aspect of an acquisition. It's a show of confidence in what LinkedIn can do for Microsoft.

So far, things are looking up, as the professional social network contributed $1.3 billion in revenue for the company during the most recent quarter. And Microsoft is betting big that the number is only going to go up as it integrates LinkedIn technology and data with Microsoft Office and other products.

Judson Althoff is in charge of Microsoft's commercial business strategy, essentially making him the tech titan's chief salesman.

He's largely responsible for getting companies to sign on with Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Azure, among other cloud computing products. That, in turn, makes him key in the ongoing growth of Microsoft's cloud business.

Before taking this role, Althoff was president of Microsoft North America. Althoff joined Microsoft in 2013 after serving as a senior vice president at Oracle for 11 years.

Chris Capossela runs marketing for all of Microsoft's services and products, helping define the company's public face.

He's been at Microsoft for more than 25 years, joining the company after he graduated from Harvard University in 1991. Before taking the CMO role, he was in charge of marketing Microsoft Office and Office 365.

Frank Shaw is responsible for Microsoft's public relations. He joined Microsoft in 2009 after leading the company's account at an outside PR agency, WE.

Shaw, a former US Marine, is responsible for helping the press navigate the often-complicated issues surrounding Microsoft.

Shaw was listed on PR Week's Power List for 2017, and has been named to Business Insider's PR 50 list of the best public relations professionals in the tech business several times.

Alex Kipman is an inventor and technical fellow at Microsoft, focusing on the company's push into augmented reality. He is responsible for HoloLens, Microsoft's augmented reality headset, and the Microsoft Kinect sensor for Xbox before that.

The Brazil-born executive joined Microsoft after graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2001. He's been at Microsoft since he graduated there, first working on Visual Studio, the company's software for developers, until 2005 when he joined the Windows division.

Microsoft believes that augmented and virtual reality is the future of computing, which is why it's betting big on its so-called Windows Mixed Reality strategy. And Kipman is leading the charge for Microsoft.

And of course, there's Satya Nadella, who has been at Microsoft since 1992, when founder Bill Gates was still at the helm. Nadella joined after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and working at Sun Microsystems, and he later went on to get an MBA at the University at Chicago's Booth School of Business while at Microsoft.

In 2007, Nadella was named senior VP of Microsoft Online Services, which put him in charge of Bing and early online versions of Microsoft Office and the Xbox Live gaming service. In 2011 he was promoted to president of the Server and Tools Division, overseeing the Windows Server, the SQL Server database, and the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Since taking the reins as CEO in 2014, Nadella has been credited with putting Microsoft back on track: He improved company morale, fast-tracked exciting new products like Microsoft HoloLens, and helped the company move beyond a troubled period in its history marked by the disastrous Nokia acquisition and disappointing products.

The turnaround job is still a work in progress, but Nadella has put many of the pieces and people in place.