For Amy Strande, impact doesn’t always come with a headline, but it always starts with listening. Spending over half of her 25 years as a Chief of Staff at Microsoft, Amy has built her career around a simple but powerful idea: if you care deeply about people—employees and customers alike—transformation will follow.
Amy’s journey at Microsoft took a defining turn when she joined the HR team. There, she uncovered a foundational truth: employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction are deeply connected.
With that insight, Amy took action. She led the Global Onboarding initiative, uniting a complex web of stakeholders across HR, payroll, facilities, IT, and legal. The goal was clear: create a seamless onboarding experience so new hires could log in, get paid, and feel welcomed from day one. Her leadership turned friction points into moments of confidence, setting a new standard for what great onboarding looks like.
But Amy didn’t stop there. She expanded the initiative into a broader Employee Experience strategy. Drawing from global survey data, her team identified six core drivers of satisfaction, ranging from career development and sense of belonging to trust in leadership. They also defined three essentials that must never fail: technology reliability, strong management capability, and, cross-company agility.
What makes Amy’s leadership truly unique is her philosophy: “There’s no task too small or too big for me to take on if it helps someone else.” That mindset has made her a quiet force of change—one who ensures every system she touches becomes more human, more inclusive, and more effective.
When working in the healthcare domain, Amy continued to bring these same principles to her leadership. Whether supporting employee growth or improving patient outcomes, she remains committed to building environments where people can do their best work—and feel good doing it. Amy’s contribution as a Board member to 40,000+ Microsoft Alumni Network has helped implement new programs for alumni to boomerang into the Microsoft employee ecosystem easily. Amy’s story is a reminder that transformation doesn’t always begin with a revolution. Sometimes, it begins with listening closely, acting deliberately, and making every moment—and every person—matter.
About #empowHER50 campaign
This campaign celebrates women leaders at Microsoft, past and present, who have been instrumental in democratizing access to technology, opportunity, and growth. By honoring their contributions over the last half-century, this campaign highlights stories of resilience, innovation, and inclusivity. Through digital spotlights, a commemorative coffee table book, live recognition events, and more, the campaign inspires collective action toward achieving equitable societal goals. To learn more about empowHER50, please visit https://womenincloud.com/empowHER50
To learn about Microsoft 50th celebrations: https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-50/
