Rebecca Houghton

About Rebecca Houghton

With over twenty years experience in the tech industry, I\'m a seasoned program, project, and people manager with proven record of success developing end to end strategy and delivering on complex, multi-faceted, global projects. Strong background in software development, product management, continuous improvement models, business performance management, and enterprise communications. Results driven, exceptional problem-solving and interpersonal skills. Excellent references.

Experience

1. Director of Business & Technical Programs - Management

   Microsoft

   Jan 2020 — Present · Redmond, WA, US

   Drive up to $80M in annual support cost savings through leadership of the Microsoft Support Community, surpassing targets by $7M in 2025 and achieving 39% above target in unique customer sessions (1.5B), while maintaining industry-leading customer success and satisfaction metrics.• Led the successful re-imagining and rollout of the Services Hub case create experience, onboarding 90% of customers by March 2025, delivering over $2M in cost reductions every month, and laying the foundation for Copilot expansion.• Orchestrated a rapid business continuity plan in response to changes to our suppliers, onboarding three new partners and 100+ Support Advocates within a week to maintain baseline support for Community customers.• Championed Community Support Convergence, building a robust pipeline for migrating 4M threads, creating a simple, consistent, and connected customer experience, earning executive recognition, and delivering a platform for future AI investments.• Pioneered the integration of AI and community content into Microsoft Support, negotiating priorities to launch Community AI Assistant and driving experiments to increase self-help success and drive a projected $100M+ in annual savings.• Championed and delivered real-time translation for answerers in the community, resulting in a 16% faster response time, a 33% reduction in un-replied threads, and a 2% increase in customer success, while also winning two gold Stevie Awards for this work.• Led a complete restructure of the Office forum, collaborating across support planners, product teams, and engineering to launch a new taxonomy that reduced misrouted posts by up to 40% and future-proofed the forum for new product launches.• Built and empowered high-performing, diverse teams by modeling inclusive leadership, guiding teams through change and crisis, and investing in growth through advanced training, career coaching, and active participation in ERGs to advance diversity and inclusion.

Education

• University of East Anglia

  BA, Honors

Skills

• Strategic Communications
• Agile Methodologies
• Management
• Copywriting
• Web Content Management
• Project Management
• Vendor Management
• Marketing
• Software Project Management
• Content Management
• Crm
• Visio
• Information Architecture
• Product Management
• Xml
• Content Development
• Web Analytics
• Business Intelligence
• Cms
• Program Management
• Digital Marketing
• Cloud Computing
• Training
• Sharepoint
• Requirements Gathering
• Customer Relationship Management (Crm)
• Web Development
• Business Analysis
• Consulting
• Business Process
• Software Documentation
• Sdlc
• Internal Communications
• Web Project Management
• Quality Assurance
• Solution Architecture
• E-Commerce
• Scrum
• User Experience
• Leadership