Phil Spencer (business executive)

Phil Spencer
Born	January 12, 1968 (age 49)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Washington
Occupation	Head executive of Microsoft's Xbox division
Title	Executive Vice President of Gaming

Phil Spencer is an American business executive, who is the Executive Vice President of Gaming at Microsoft. He is currently the head of the Xbox brand and leads the global creative and engineering teams responsible for gaming at Microsoft.

Spencer earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and currently serves on the boards of the First Tee of Greater Seattle and the Entertainment Software Association.

Spencer joined Microsoft in 1988 as an intern and has worked in a number of technical roles, leading the development of Microsoft's first CD-ROM-based titles (such as Encarta), development manager for Microsoft Money, and general manager of Microsoft's online and offline consumer productivity products including Microsoft Works and Microsoft Picture It!

Spencer served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, working with Microsoft's European developers and studios such as Lionhead Studios and Rare until 2008, when he became the general manager of Microsoft Studios, eventually becoming the studio's corporate vice president a year later. He has participated in Microsoft's E3 conferences since 2010.

In late March 2014, Satya Nadella announced in a corporate e-mail that Spencer was to "lead the Xbox, Xbox Live, Xbox Music and Xbox Video teams, and Microsoft Studios".

Shortly after his appointment, in an interview with Larry Hryb, Spencer stated that there were some wrong decisions regarding the direction of the Xbox One and that the console would focus more on video games instead of general entertainment. In September 2017, Spencer was promoted to the Senior Leadership Team, gaining the title of Executive Vice President of Gaming within the company. He reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella.

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