Teresa Carlson returns to Microsoft

Market chatter has been active for at least a week that one of government cloud computing's early champions Teresa Carlson had returned to Microsoft, which she left in 2010 for Amazon Web Services.

Our attempts to reach Carlson have not been successful but after The Information first reported the move on Tuesday, Carlson has updated her LinkedIn profile with her new position as a corporate vice president and executive-in-residence at Microsoft.

She also continues to be non-executive chair at KnightSwan Acquisition Corp., a special acquisition corporation looking to invest in national security-related companies and take them public.

Carlson left AWS last year after an 11-year run that saw her lead the growth of its then-nascent public sector business into the dominant cloud hosting provider, and often taking on her former employer.

In April 2021, she joined Splunk as chief growth officer in a move that surprised many.

But a lot has happened at Splunk over the past 11 months.

Doug Merritt, the CEO who hired Carlson, resigned from the company in November.

Then in March, Splunk's board of directors hired a new CEO in Gary Steele. Splunk also said at the time that Carlson “will be stepping down to pursue other career opportunities.”

Splunk’s annual report to investors says that "Carlson’s employment with us terminated on March 31, 2022; this termination constituted a termination of her employment by us without ‘cause.’”

But Carlson’s departure was not the only one at Splunk that coincides with Steele's appointment as CEO.

Shawn Bice, president of products and technology, resigned from the company on May 22. He was also hired by Merritt within the past year.

The new CEO is putting his own senior team in place.

As for Carlson, few details have emerged regarding her new role at Microsoft. The Information reports Carlson will report to Chris Young; executive vice president of business development, strategy and ventures.

Microsoft declined to comment on Carlson's hiring or her new role.