NewsGamingTechXbox\u2019s former COO has \u2018serious concerns\u2019 about her abrupt departureHelen Chiang is setting the record straight on her sudden exit from Microsoft.Helen Chiang is setting the record straight on her sudden exit from Microsoft.by Tom WarrenNov 2, 2026, 6:43 PM UTCShareGiftImage: The VergeTom Warren is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years.Xbox\u2019s former chief operating officer, Helen Chiang, suddenly left Microsoft less than two weeks ago after being promoted into the role in July. I wrote in my Notepad newsletter last week that it seemed very weird for Chiang to suddenly depart Microsoft after 21 years with a surprisingly short memo from Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. Now, Chiang says she has \u201cserious concerns\u201d about how she was treated.In a lengthy LinkedIn post \u2014 entitled \u201cclarity is kindness,\u201d a reference to Sharma\u2019s WSJ profile \u2014 Chiang doesn\u2019t dispute that she was fired, but she doesn\u2019t say why she was let go. Eurogamer reported last month that Chiang had been \u201cterminated for policy violations,\u201d but she says this is \u201cnot accurate.\u201dChiang denies unfounded rumors that speculated she was leaking confidential information, or that she left to join a competitor.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear the decision to leave Xbox was out of her hands. \u201cYou don\u2019t spend two decades somewhere without developing a deep loyalty to the people, teams, and businesses you\u2019ve helped build,\u201d says Chiang. \u201cXbox was never just another stop in my career. My end game was always to keep building here.\u201dShe also denies engaging in \u201cdiscrimination, bullying, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement, or other fraudulent activity.\u201d Like I wrote in Notepad last week, Chiang has been described to me by multiple Xbox employees as highly respected, with high integrity. \u201cI stand by my record: both the results I delivered and the way I have treated people throughout my career,\u201d says Chiang.The most significant part of Chiang\u2019s post is a paragraph on fairness and accountability, hinting that she wasn\u2019t treated fairly:I believe in fairness, accountability, and holding ourselves to the standards we expect of others. Those standards only mean something when they\u2019re applied consistently. I have serious concerns about how they were applied in my case, and I believe those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.Chiang also says \u201cThis is not how I ever imagined my story here would end.<\/p>\n
And it is not the whole story.\u201dWe\u2019ve reached out to Chiang to ask if she\u2019s pursuing legal action against Microsoft. We\u2019ve also asked Microsoft to comment on Chiang\u2019s post, but the company didn\u2019t respond in time for publication.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Tom WarrenGamingMicrosoftNewsTechXboxMost PopularNew Zelda and GTA represent a games industry that no longer existsHomePod Mini 2 first look: Three things I love and one disappointmentFlock keeps ignoring requests to cancel its contractsJackery made its portable power stations even smallerA fully playable version of Portal prequel F-Stop leakedAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NewsGamingTechXbox\u2019s former COO has \u2018serious concerns\u2019 about her abrupt departureHelen Chiang is setting the record straight on her sudden exit from Microsoft.Helen Chiang is setting the record straight on her sudden exit from Microsoft.by Tom\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}