Executive Biographies
Rosa María García
Rosa María García
Vice President Consumer & Online, Microsoft Western Europe.
With over 20 years’ experience in the Information Technologies industry, Rosa María García joined Microsoft Spain in 1991 as the Technical Support Director, where she discovered that technology’s value truly lies in what it can do for people.
Four years later, she moved to the company’s headquarters in Redmond (EE.UU.) to work directly with the current CEO and President, Steve Ballmer, as Director of Corporate Strategic Projects. During that time, she focused on the future of technologies, designing the Microsoft strategy worldwide and working with the different regional divisions to implement the company’s plans.
Three years later, in 2000, Rosa María García was appointed Corporate Managing Director of Partner Sales and Marketing at Microsoft, where she designed, developed and coordinate the involvement and participation strategies for the more than 800,000 partner companies that work with Microsoft worldwide in the areas of sales, consultancy, services and marketing.
If something defines Rosa, it is “the passion that she feels for what she does”, a fundamental aspect that has helped her to maintain a steady rhythm in such a dynamic sector as the one in which Microsoft operates. The people closest to her describe her as a person who stands out for her talent, discipline and hard work.
Rosa María García avoids talking in terms of bits and bytes and believes that in reality, the importance of software for Microsoft lies in the capacity “to develop people’s potential and convert companies and public entities into more efficient, productive and competitive organizations”.
On May 30th 2002, Microsoft Spain announced the appointment of Rosa María García as the new Country Manager. This meant that at a personal level, she would be returning to the city where she was born and had grown up, and as a career move, that she would be assuming new responsibilities and leaving the corporate headquarters in Redmond to manage a Microsoft subsidiary with a team that is currently made up of nearly 720 people.
After six years leading the Spanish subsidiary, Rosa María García was appointed Vice President Consumer & Online, Microsoft Western Europe, with responsibility for sales, marketing, operations and business development of the new division (including all Microsoft businesses related with the consumer market) for the 14 countries included in the Western Europe region.
Always proud of her roots, Rosa stresses that everything she has achieved is down to hard work, determination and “less sleep than I would like”, but above all thanks to a great team of people who, day to day, work towards a common goal: “to humanize software”.
A math graduate, Rosa María García is a member of the board of the Asociación para el Progreso de la Dirección (Association for Progress in Management (APD)) and member of the Top Management Forum. She has received the Spanish Federation of Female Managers’ Award to the Female Manager of the Year and the CEO of the Year prize awarded by the Spanish CEO Association.
Before joining Microsoft, she held various positions in multinationals such as NEC in Germany and WordPerfect in Spain.
Married and mother of three children, she spends her free time with her family. Her hobbies include photography and reading.
