Today, we’re witnessing the transition from an analogue world to one that is almost entirely digital. Soon, all content will exist in digital form. While this change will transform every industry, the impact on advertising will be particularly dramatic.

For the advertising business, digital technology comes with a powerful
promise – the ability to reach exactly the right audience, at exactly the right time
and place, with exactly the right message.


We’re not there yet. Today’s media landscape is highly fragmented. Consumers want to shape their own brand experiences. Traditional advertising vehicles such as broadcast and print are losing their power, but the value of the web and social media remains unproven. Read more from Steven Ballmer in The Future of Marketing..

Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer,
Microsoft Corporation

Steven A. Ballmer is chief executive officer of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s leading manufacturer of software for personal and business computing. Ballmer joined Microsoft in 1980 and was the first business manager hired by Bill Gates.

Ballmer was born in March 1956, and grew up near Detroit, where his father worked as a manager at Ford Motor Co. He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics. While in college, Ballmer managed the football team, worked on the Harvard Crimson newspaper as well as the university literary magazine, and lived down the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. After college, he worked for two years at Procter & Gamble Co. as an assistant product manager and, before joining Microsoft, attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business.