PJ Hough. Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Programme Management
Next time you open your Microsoft Office, on your PC or Laptop, here in Co Tipperary or elsewhere, know that a Tipperary native is playing a significant role in the future shaping of the device you are about to use.
PJ Hough, a 47 year old Borrisokane Co.Tipperary native (Lived close to President Barack Obama’s ancestral home) is the Corporate Vice President of Programme Management for the Microsoft Office Group at the Seattle software giant’s HQ.
Following the Microsoft Office 2010 launch in June last year, Microsoft estimated there were about one billion copies, including pirated versions, of the companies state of the art software installed globally.
Microsoft’s profits have grown considerably, with an estimated €4 billion accounting for just the last financial quarter and with Hough at the helm since 1994.
Hough was attending the Borrisokane Vocational School in the 1980s, during a time when unemployment levels in Ireland were edging towards 15 per cent. Hough recalls: “There was an Apple 2 computer in the Vocational school in Borrisokane at the time, but none of the teachers had been trained how to use it and I remember saving pocket money to go to Eason’s in Limerick to buy a book on how to programme it.”
Now with an interest in computers, Hough signed up to a Bachelor degree, followed by a Masters in Computer Applications at, what is now known as, Dublin City University (DCU) and graduated in 1986. After college he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation in Galway, where he stayed for the next eight years, involved in a variety of engineering and consulting roles.
Close to 30 years old, Hough applied for a Donnelly Visa, to gain access to the United States and on being successful, he applied to join Microsoft, in Redmond in Washington State in 1994.
Hough focused primarily on Office programmability and Microsoft Access where, after seven years in program management, he went on to join the Microsoft Office product planning team, based here in Ireland.
In 2003, Hough returned to Redmond to lead the Windows SharePoint Services team, where he was the group program manager, three years later he joined the Office Shared team in 2006.
A regular visitor to Ireland, Mr Hough currently lives in North Bend, Washington, with his wife and daughter.
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