ServiceNow has announced the appointment of Hossein Nowbar as president and chief legal officer as the firm seeks to accelerate its enterprise AI ambitions.
Nowbar joins ServiceNow after nearly three decades at Microsoft, where he most recently served as corporate vice president and chief legal officer. At ServiceNow, he will oversee global legal affairs, ethics and compliance, corporate governance, public policy, sustainability, and risk management, while also taking on the broader responsibilities of the president’s role. He will report directly to CEO Bill McDermott and work closely with the executive leadership team.
“Bill’s vision for ServiceNow’s future and the scale opportunities he’s driving are inspiring. I look forward to partnering with him and this exceptional team to strengthen a world-class legal, policy, and governance framework that enables innovation and customer success while upholding the highest standards of integrity and accountability,” said Nowbar in a statement.
Deepening Ties With Microsoft
Nowbar’s appointment comes as ServiceNow is expanding rapidly across AI-driven workflows, platform integrations, and global enterprise customers. As the company pushes further into regulated industries and mission-critical use cases, leadership experience in navigating complex legal, regulatory, and geopolitical environments is becoming increasingly important. It’s believed that Nowbar’s background at Microsoft, where he advised on large-scale cloud, AI, and platform initiatives, positions him well to help guide ServiceNow through this next phase.
Russ Elmer, who has served as ServiceNow’s chief legal officer since 2018, will transition into a special counsel role.
What makes this appointment interesting for ServiceNow pros is the clear Microsoft connection. ServiceNow and Microsoft have been long-time partners, and that relationship has become more visible and more strategic over the past year. Recent integrations position ServiceNow as an orchestration layer across Microsoft’s productivity and AI ecosystem, with tighter alignment around Copilot, enterprise AI governance, and workflow automation across Microsoft 365 and Azure environments.
Indeed, Microsoft president Brad Smith said he had no objection to the move, and in fact praised Nowbar and congratulated ServiceNow in the statement that accompanied the announcement.
“Having worked closely with Hossein for more than 25 years, I can say first-hand that ServiceNow is incredibly fortunate to have him,” said Smith.
Final Thoughts
For ServiceNow watchers, Nowbar’s move indicates a deeper partner alignment with Microsoft as it works towards its vision of becoming the enterprise AI operating system.
As AI capabilities become embedded into core workflows, enterprises are paying closer attention to how vendors handle governance, transparency, and accountability. Having a president and CLO with firsthand experience shaping AI policy at one of the world’s largest tech companies sends a strong signal about ServiceNow’s priorities.