He joins some other high profile hirings at the cloud software company this year. Those are Tod Nielson as CEO in January; Fred Studer as chief marketing officer in March; Gordy Brooks as CFO in August. Brown's previous positions with Microsoft involved running product teams for Dynamics AX and NAV. He served as GM for Dynamics AX application R&D from November 2012 through September 2016 and held a similar title for Dynamics NAV from February 2018 through November 2012. You don't suppose that means Microsoft considered moving from NAV to AX a step up? Nah. The press release announcing Brown's new job said in the two Dynamics roles "he was responsible for their international business growth, product development, and shift to a cloud delivery model."