Paula Duell Northern

Paula Duell Northern is the vice president of global supply chain for cloud operations and innovation. She brings more than 20 years of technical and business experience to this role.

Prior to joining Microsoft, she was the first chief inclusion and diversity officer at Baker Hughes Company, where she was focused on the development and execution of inclusion strategies focused on improving diversity.

Prior to this role, she was vice president of sourcing and supply chain excellence at Baker Hughes Company at the corporate level. In this role, she was responsible for taking a holistic approach to maximize the efficiency of the supply chain by developing global sourcing strategies to drive competitive product and services cost positions while also developing manufacturing capabilities across the enterprise. In addition, she was responsible for optimizing the global footprint, including its investment and facility maintenance strategy. Lastly, she was responsible for developing the next generation supply chain leaders by leading the ASPIRE supply chain track for entry level employees.

She brings strong supply chain leadership given her senior executive level experiences in both Baker Hughes Company and General Electric in the overall Global Supply Chain. She is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt.

Paula earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, LA, and an MBA from Mercer University in Atlanta. She is an active member of the Houston community. She and her husband have two children and reside in Houston, TX.