Brian Kevin Turner

B. Kevin Turner  is an American businessman known for his executive leadership roles at Wal-Mart and Microsoft. As of May 2010, he is the Chief Operating Officer at Microsoft.

Early life
Turner was born in 1965. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Management from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma where he was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. During his college years, he worked full-time as a cashier at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart
Upon graduation in 1987, Turner began working for Wal-Mart full-time, eventually gravitating toward the IT department. He rose up through the ranks quickly becoming the youngest corporate officer ever named at Wal-Mart at the age of 29. In 1997, Turner held worldwide responsibility for all Application Development and Support at Wal-Mart, and was later promoted to executive vice president and chief information officer for Wal-Mart. On September 12, 2002, Turner was named Chief Executive Officer of Wal-Mart's subsidiary corporation, Sam's Warehouse.

Microsoft
In 2005 Microsoft hired Kevin Turner to be Chief Operating Officer (the prior COO, Rick Belluzzo, had left the company in 2002 and no replacement had been hired). Microsoft offered Turner a base salary of $570,000 per year, a $7 million up-front payment, and other stock awards to help compensate him for stock-based pay that he lost when he left Wal-Mart. Microsoft also gave Turner 325,000 shares of stock that would vest over a period of many years, beginning in 2008 and running through to retirement. Turner would have been required to forfeit the entire $7 million up-front payment had he left voluntarily or been terminated for cause before completing 12 months of employment. A portion of the hiring bonus would have had to have been repaid had he left voluntarily within three years or been terminated for cause. Turner was also eligible for a bonus of up to the amount of his salary and was enrolled in the company's stock award program, with a target award of 624,000 shares (the actual amount determined by Microsoft's achievement of certain goals). Finally, Turner was offered Microsoft's "executive relocation assistance program," in which the company had arranged for a third party to purchase his current primary residence at its appraised value had it not sold as of a mutually agreed-upon date.

Turner accepted the offer and moved his wife (Shelley) and three children to Washington State where, in September 2005, he took on responsibility for the strategic and operational leadership of Microsoft's worldwide sales, marketing and services organization (SMS&G) which delivered over $51 billion USD in revenue during Microsoft's fiscal 2009 (July 2008 to end of June 2009). In addition to driving sales and marketing programs, Turner manages the online advertising sales organization and corporate support organizations, including product and customer support services, branding, advertising, public relations, marketing research and relationship marketing. Turner also oversees corporate operations and internal Information Technology that support the work of Microsoft’s over 90,000 plus employees around the world.

Turner is also leading Microsoft’s entry into the Retail Stores business.

Along with Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer and other senior executives, Turner serves on the Senior Leadership Team that sets the overall strategy and direction for Microsoft.

Awards and honors
In 2003, East Central University named Turner Distinguished Alumnus. In 1997 Turner became the recipient of the first "Sam M. Walton - Entrepreneur Of The Year" Award, which is the highest honor given at Wal-Mart and is voted by the Walton Family. Turner was among TIME Magazine's People To Watch In International Business, was ranked #4 on FORTUNE Magazine's Top 10 Most Influential on 40 Under 40 list, was among Business 2.0's The 20 Young Execs You Need To Know and was awarded CIO Magazine's 20/20 Vision Award and CIO 100 Award. In 2007, he was named to the CIO Hall Of Fame by CIO Magazine, as well as listed fifth in CRN Magazine's list of the Top 25 Most Innovative Executives.