Dr. Qi (English pr. Chee) Lu

Executive Vice President of Microsoft?s Applications and Services Group, he leads Microsoft?s business where he sets the vision, strategy, and overall direction of the group, and is responsible for all of the research and development teams across Microsoft Office, Office 365, SharePoint, Exchange, Yammer, Lync, Skype, Bing, Bing Apps, MSN and the Advertising platforms and Business group. He formerly worked as a researcher at IBM and as Technology Developer and Manager for Yahoo!'s Technology Search Division. Born in Shanghai, it is reported that he was sent to live with his grandparents in a remote village in Jiangsu Province by his parents during the Cultural Revolution. He studied at Fudan University in Shanghai, China where he earned his Bachelor?s and Master?s degrees in Computer Science. After attending a talk by Carnegie Mellon?s Professor Edmund M. Clarke, he was invited to apply for a Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University (Carnegie Mellon or CMU); Clarke offering to waive the $45 application fee. In 1996, he graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He worked at IBM?s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, from 1996 to 1998, and then joined Yahoo! where he spent 10 years as a Yahoo! senior executive, eventually rising to manage 3,000 engineers and the development of Search and Search Advertising Technologies for the company. His roles included serving as the Executive Vice President of Engineering for the company?s Search and Advertising Technology Group where he oversaw the development of Yahoo!?s Web search and monetization platforms, and Vice President of Engineering responsible for the technology development of Yahoo!?s search, e-commerce and local listings of businesses and products. His departure from Yahoo! in mid-2008 was long-planned, and he was contemplating opportunities in venture capital and even thinking of returning to China. However, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer personally recruited him to join the software giant, initially as President of the Online Services Division where he led the company?s search, portal and online advertising efforts. He was instrumental in driving the partnership with Yahoo! in Search and the launch of Bing. He holds 20 U.S. patents including one in 2000 for a technique to search audio files and find similar songs.