Helen Chiang, Xbox's first Chief Operating Officer, has left Microsoft, just months after being appointed to the newly created role in July. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma confirmed the departure in an internal memo and thanked Chiang for her years of service.
Chiang spent 21 years at Microsoft, where she oversaw Minecraft. Microsoft has not publicly stated the reason for her departure after such a brief tenure. Kari Perez, Vice President of Communications at Xbox, simply stated that the company does not discuss individual personnel matters.
When Xbox established the Chief Operating Officer position, it was positioned as part of a restructuring plan. The role was responsible for end-to-end profit and loss management across content, hardware, platforms, and services, with the goal of integrating various business units into a unified operational model to improve investment decisions, knowledge sharing, and performance accountability.
Chiang's former direct responsibilities have now been distributed among other Xbox leaders. Sharma stated that future leadership arrangements for the COO function will be announced once determined, implying that while the role hasn't been explicitly eliminated, the succession plan remains undisclosed.