The fallout from last month's departure of Xbox's newly appointed COO just got a little messier.
ICYMI, late last month, Helen Chiang, who had been with Microsoft for 21 years and was appointed COO in July as part of the big Xbox reset, abruptly left the company. Chiang has yet to provide an explanation for her departure, and the conspicuously brief memo in which Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced Chiang's departure only deepened the mystery. This week, Chiang herself shot down reports that she was fired for violating policy and said she had "serious concerns" about Microsoft's handling of the situation, but notably didn't directly refute claims she was ousted.
Now, a prominent figure in Xbox's history is stepping up in defense of Chiang with a sharp rebuke of Microsoft leadership. In a response to Chiang on LinkedIn (captured via Twitter user Knoebel and independently verified), former Xbox VP Shannon Loftis, who was with Microsoft for 33 years before leaving in 2022, throws her full support behind Chiang amid her departure.
"Team Helen all the way," says Loftis. "The 'leak' itself (of false information, for what purpose -? Let's all speculate on who made THAT decision) shows the loss of moral character and 'clarity' in leadership at Xbox. A real leadership team would have relentlessly pursued the 'leaker' and taken appropriate action because 'confidential personnel matters' actually are bases for defamation lawsuits."
The "leaker" Loftis is referring to appears to be the source at Eurogamer who had claimed Chiang was fired for "policy violations." Chiang has vehemently denied the claim about why she was fired, but so far Xbox and Microsoft have provided no official statement beyond the published internal memo from Sharma, which provides virtually zero explanation for Chiang's departure.
"It's a clownshow up in there and I feel terrible for anyone that still has to deal with it," Loftis concludes.
Loftis is a self-employed "video game maker" today, according to her LinkedIn, but she originally joined Microsoft as an IT project manager way back in 1993, before hopping over to the games side of the business in 1995. She would climb all the way up to VP of Xbox Game Studios in 2022, a position she would hold for just a few months.
