How Amy Hood won back Wall Street and helped reboot Microsoft

Signage is displayed outside the Microsoft Corp. main campus in Redmond, Washington, U.S., on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2017. In the race to commercialize a new type of powerful computer, Microsoft has just pulled up to the starting line with a slick-looking set of wheels. The Redmond, Washington-based tech giant is competing with Alphabet Inc.'s Google, International Business Machines Corp. and a clutch of small, specialized companies to develop quantum computers – machines that, in theory, will be many times more powerful than existing computers by bending the laws of physics. Photographer: David Ryder/Bloomberg

Clad in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, Amy Hood stands before a room of 140 Microsoft recruits. The feeling in the air is a bit like the first day of school, and new hires are taking selfies outside in front of a big Microsoft logo. 

Hood tells the crowd that her job as chief financial officer is not simply to balance the books and plan spending, although she’s pretty good at that. Her main role is to make sure every one of them is glad they chose Microsoft. “My kids will tell you I practice counting, but my job is really a little different than that,” she tells the crowd, grouped at round tables by the business unit they’re joining.