BITSian breaks into the Microsoft’s Top Management Team as Skype VP

New Delhi: Gurdeep Singh Pall is the new star in the glorious alumni list of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. He has been named the Corporate Vice President of Skype – the popular international voiceover and messaging service offered by Microsoft Corporation for free.
A software engineer by profession, Pall was born in Chandigarh. He also has Master’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Oregon.

Before this new designation, he was the head of the information platform and experience team in Microsoft’s new applications and services division.

Not only Pall is the first Sikh to make it to the top management team of Microsoft, he also has more than 20 patents (approved or in process) in areas related to Networking, VoIP (voiceover internet protocol) and Collaboration. He is employed at Microsoft since 1990 – for more than two decades.

Pall has worked on many breakthrough products throughout his career. He started as a LAN Manager Remote Access Service and later became a part of the Windows NT development team. Gurdeep led design and implementation of several core networking technologies and also led acquisitions and technical partnerships with leading companies.

He is also on the board of trustees of Ashesi University in Ghana.

In 2008, Information Week named this BITS Pilani alumnus as one of the “15 Innovators & Influencers Who Will Make A Difference”. Pall has also co-authored a paper called “Institutional Memory Goes Digital” which was published by Harvard Business Review as part of Breakthrough Ideas for 2009. Later, the paper was also presented the World Economic Forum 2009 in Davos.