Julia Liuson

Julia Zhenglei Liuson
潘正磊
Born
Zhenglei Pan

1970 (age 55–56)
Shanghai, China
EducationUniversity of Washington (BS)
Organization(s)Microsoft
GitHub

Julia Zhenglei Liuson (born Zhenglei Pan; Chinese: 潘正磊; pinyin: Pān Zhènglěi; born 1970) is a Chinese-born American technology executive. She served as the president of the Developer Division at Microsoft from November 2021 until June 2026, when she retired after 34 years with the company.[1][2][3]

During her tenure, Liuson oversaw business and software development for Visual Studio and the .NET Framework, including Visual Studio Code, all programming languages, user interfaces, team development/testing tools, and platform adoption tools. In an interview with eWEEK, Liuson said Microsoft is working to help all developers, of all platforms and languages, be successful with tools which enable innovative scenarios.[4]

Early life and education

Zhenglei Pan was born in Shanghai, China in 1970.[5]

In 1991, Liuson received a bachelor's degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Washington.[6]

Career

Liuson joined Microsoft right out of college in 1992.[7] Her initial role was as a developer first on the Access team, and later on Visual InterDev, the precursor to Visual Studio.[8] She has held a variety of technical and management positions at Microsoft, serving as development manager, and later as partner product unit manager for Visual Basic. Liuson was then named general manager of Visual Studio Business Applications, where she was responsible for enabling developers to easily build business applications on Microsoft server and service platforms.[9]

Liuson served as general manager for server and tools business from Microsoft Shanghai office in China for two years while running engineering teams on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.[5] She presented keynote speeches and guest speakers in some business and technology events including Connect() 2015,[10][11] China Business Challenge 2014,[12] and Technet 2013 for China.[13]

In April 2026, Liuson announced her resignation from Microsoft after 34 years with the company. She continued as head of the Developer Division through June 2026, after which she transitioned to an advisory role reporting to Jay Parikh, chief of Microsoft's CoreAI division.[2][3] No replacement was immediately named.

Reception

In 2019, Liuson was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.[7] In 2021 she was appointed to the Cadence Design Systems board of directors[14] and remains on the board as of 2026.[15]

Personal life

She and her husband have a son.[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Foley, Mary Jo. "Microsoft shuffles its Cloud and Enterprise team, further melding software and cloud". ZDNet. Retrieved 2015-10-23.
  2. 1 2 Warren, Tom (April 8, 2026). "Microsoft's executive shake-up continues as developer division chief resigns". The Verge. Retrieved June 13, 2026.
  3. 1 2 Stiffler, Lisa (April 8, 2026). "Microsoft Moves: Longtime exec Julia Liuson to retire; new accessibility chief; and other changes". GeekWire. Retrieved June 13, 2026.
  4. ↑ Taft, Darryl K. "Microsoft Delivers Visual Studio 2015 Update 1". EWeek.com. EWeek. Retrieved 2015-11-30.
  5. 1 2 Wang, Hsiao-wen. "Microsoft Changes Course". Commonwealth. Commonwealth Magazine. Archived from the original on 2015-10-24. Retrieved 2015-04-09.
  6. ↑ "ECEDHA Diversity Award". ece.uw.edu.
  7. 1 2 3 "How the specter of irrelevancy helped Microsoft Corporate VP Julia Liuson drive massive change". GeekWire.
  8. ↑ Liuson, Julia (2017-02-09). "Join Us: Visual Studio 2017 Launch Event and 20th Anniversary". The Visual Studio Blog. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
  9. ↑ "CHIME Advisory Board". Microsoft Chime. Microsoft Chime Board.
  10. ↑ Kohnstamm, Thomas (18 November 2015). "Microsoft announces innovations for all developers at Connect();". Microsoft News. Microsoft. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
  11. ↑ "The Future of Software Development". Channel9 MSDN. Microsoft. Retrieved 2015-11-18.
  12. ↑ Yu, Deng. "Young entrepreneurs get a lift in Seattle". Chinadaily. Retrieved 2014-04-07.
  13. ↑ "Microsoft Technet China 2013( translated from Chinese)". Microsoft. Retrieved 2013-10-01.
  14. ↑ MarketScreener (2020-12-01). "Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Appoints Julia Liuson to Board of Directors - MarketScreener". www.marketscreener.com. Retrieved 2024-12-02.
  15. ↑ "Officers & Directors - Cadence Design Systems Inc". CSIMarket. Retrieved June 13, 2026.
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