Rick Devenuti graduated from the University of Washington with a Degree in Accounting. He then accepted a position in an auditing department of Deloitte Haskins and Sells. Within two years he was focusing on Small Business Consulting and Microsoft was one of his clients. In 1987 he accepted a position with Microsoft as a Cost Accounting Manager and soon realized he was a better fit for the company than he could have ever imagined. His next position as Controller of the U.S. Sales and Marketing Division gave him greater insight into the inner workings of the senior level of the organization. His next role as the Director of Financial Analysis gave him the opportunity to start a new group and reinforced his "failure is not an option" philosophy. He then became the General Manager of Sales Operations followed by his role as the General Manager of North American Operations where he was closely involved with the Windows 95 launch. He was then promoted to the Vice President of Worldwide Operations where he directed all Microsoft activities involving product information, product release, manufacturing and distribution vendors, transactions, processes and systems. He is currently heading up the Information Technology organization as the company’s CIO. From the Series:Information Technology Leaders