Jon Roskill Steps Down as Microsoft’s Channel Chief, Company Vet Phil Sorgen Named Successor

It’s been quite a week at Microsoft as it relates to personnel changes and announcements. First, Steve Ballmer, the company’s longtime CEO announced last Friday that he plans to retire in the coming year. Now, today, we heard from the tech giant that Channel Chief Jon Roskill (pictured) is stepping down from the position he served in for the last three years.

Unlike Ballmer’s post, a successor has already been named to fill Roskill’s job—Phil Sorgen, who previously serves as Microsoft’s corporate VP Worldwide Partner Group. For his new gig, Sorgen will take over what Roskill did by continuing to manage a team of sales and marketing professionals tasked with helping Microsoft’s 640,000-member partner community capitalize on new areas of growth in cloud computing, mobility, big data and enterprise social technologies.

A 17-year veteran of Microsoft, Sorgen previously led the company’s U.S. Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners (SMS&P) Group, which provided Microsoft technology solutions for more than 20 million small and midsized businesses in the United States. Before this position, he served as president of Microsoft Canada for 3 1/2 years.

Sorgen will officially assume his new role on Sept. 1, 2013, reporting to Vahé Torossian, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of worldwide SMS&P.

In addition to an announcement released by Microsoft today naming Sorgen as Roskill’s replacement, Roskill issued his own letter via blog post this morning, which can be viewed here. In his exit note, Roskill notes of his time spent at Microsoft for the last 3+ years, but doesn’t make mention of where he will be headed, except to say that he would like to return to product development. “My plan is to return to my roots of product development and take all the great insights I gained from my time with our partners and use them to create even more partner opportunity,” he said in the blog post.

Roskill added that he welcomes Sorgen as his replacement, and also wished him the best of luck in his new position. “I’m excited to welcome Phil as the new corporate vice president of the Worldwide Partner Group (WPG) and wish him much success in leading this important organization,” Roskill said in his blog. “Phil’s extensive experience working with U.S. and Canadian customers and partners will translate well into the role of Channel Chief, and I’m confident that he will continue to grow and diversify our partner ecosystem to meet the ever changing needs of our customers.”