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Mark Penn, the former adviser to Bill Clinton, former US president, who had led Microsoft's aggressive marketing campaign against arch-rival Google, is to step aside in the first overhaul of the software maker's senior ranks by new chief executive Satya Nadella.
The shake-up will also see the departure of two of the company's top executives, Tony Bates and Tami Reller, as well as the latest in a series of reshuffles intended to bring a sharper edge to Microsoft's marketing and advertising.
Mr Penn was brought in by former chief executive Steve Ballmer two years ago as vice-president of strategic and special projects, and went on to take charge of Microsoft's advertising budget.
He used the platform for a campaign called "Scroogled" that attacked Google over issues like privacy, though the move was controversial inside Microsoft, where some saw it as a tactic better suited to political campaigning.
Famous for helping to mastermind Bill Clinton's move to the political centre two decades ago and a strategist for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign, Mr Penn had advised Mr Ballmer and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates before joining the company. He is to give up his advertising role, though will remain head of strategy.
Microsoft refused to confirm the move or the two executive departures, which were first reported on the website Re/code.
Ms Reller, Microsoft's head of marketing, whose job had overlapped with Mr Penn, is set to depart in the shake-up by Mr Nadella, who took over a month ago. She had been passed over for the job of chief financial officer last year in favour of Amy Hood.
The roles had left a division between marketing and advertising functions, despite a reorganisation by Mr Ballmer last year that was intended to bring greater centralisation by taking the activities out of the company's business divisions and putting them under single executives.
"We created the same problem we had before," said one person familiar with Microsoft's marketing organisation.
Mr Bates, meanwhile, had been seen as Mr Nadella's main internal rival for the top job after Steve Ballmer announced his planned departure last August. A former Cisco executive and chief executive of Skype, which Microsoft acquired in 2011, he had already been reported to have started conversations about jobs elsewhere since being passed over.
At Microsoft he had held the title of executive vice-president of business development and evangelism since Mr Ballmer's reorganisation last year.
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