Yusuf D. Mehdi

Bio: As senior vice president of the Online Audience Business, Yusuf Mehdi has revenue and market share responsibility for the Bing and MSN businesses at Microsoft. His team leads global product management, strategic partnerships, business development and US marketing execution. Before his current role, Mehdi served as Microsoft's chief advertising strategist and senior vice president of Strategic Partnerships. He negotiated a number of strategic agreements, including the US$6 billion purchase of aQuantive, Inc. Previously, Mehdi led research and development for the Information Services division during which time he led an 1,800-person engineering team to develop and launch Microsoft's initial web search platform and next generation advertising platform in Microsoft adCenter. Prior, Mehdi was responsible for the marketing of Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 1.0 through 5.0, and under his direction, Internet Explorer became the world's most popular software for browsing the Web. Mehdi began his career at Microsoft in 1992, playing key roles in the launch and marketing of Microsoft Windows, including the notable releases of Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Before joining Microsoft in 1992, Mehdi was a product manager at Reuters Group PLC, where he helped roll out the first PC-based Reuters Terminal, which became the standard computing platform for the company. A native of Washington, Mehdi earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of Washington. He and his wife and three children live in Washington.