Obama to honour Microsoft’s Nadella with special award

Microsoft's Indian-origin chief executive Satya Nadella is among those who will be conferred the 'Champions of Change' award by US President Barak Obama for bringing about change within his company to support working families.

"Microsoft recently announced that over the next year it will make changes to ensure that a wide variety of suppliers that do business with Microsoft in the US provide at least 15 days of paid leave each year to their employees who handle Microsoft work," the White House said as it announced the names of recipients of the Champions of Change Award.

Before being promoted to CEO in February 2014, the 47-year-old Nadella held leadership roles in both enterprise and consumer businesses across the company.

After joining Microsoft in 1992, he quickly became known as a leader who could span a breadth of technologies and businesses to transform some of Microsoft's biggest product offerings.

Originally from Hyderabad, he obtained a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Mangalore University, a master's degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago.

The 'Champions of Change' award is given to those who support working families and have helped to bring about change within their companies, communities or organisations by advocating paid sick leave and other paid other leave policies.

Nadella is also an advocate for equal pay for men and women, and an end to pregnancy discrimination.

Born in 1967 in Hyderabad, Nadella did his schooling at the Hyderabad Public School. He went on to study electronics and communication engineering at Manipal University.

He has two Master's degrees – in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA.

Nadella joined Microsoft in 1992. Before that he worked with Sun Microsystems, now a part of Oracle. He has been with Microsoft for 23 years.

According to the White House, the President remains focused on middle-class economics, adhering to the idea that economy works best when it's working for everyone.

Earlier this week, the White House released a Middle Class Tax report highlighting his budget proposals to help those 44 million middle-class Americans.

The 'Champions of Change' programme was created as an opportunity for the White House to feature individuals doing extraordinary things to empower and inspire members of their communities.