Jean Paoli is General Manager, Interoperability Strategy at Microsoft, and one of the co-creators of the XML 1.0 standard with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). He has long been a strong and passionate advocate of XML and open standards. Jean manages the Interoperability Strategy team that coordinates the technical interoperability activities across Microsoft.

Jean jump-started the XML activity in Microsoft. He created and managed the team that delivered msxml, the software that XML-enabled both Internet Explorer and the Windows operating system. Paoli helped architect Office XML support and was instrumental in creating the newest XML Office application, InfoPath.

Paoli has been a significant player in the worldwide XML community since 1985, when the technology was then known as SGML. Until 1996, when he joined Microsoft, Jean was based in Paris, where he worked in collaboration with European research institutes, including INRIA in France. He designed several systems for major corporations where SGML, in its approach of structuring and storing information, ensured the long life and easy exchangeability of the data across systems. His specialty has been building end-user markup editing tools. Jean participated in ISO standardization activities and was co-chair of the TC45 Ecma standard committee that standardized the Office Open XML Formats at Ecma International.

Jean is the recipient of multiple industry awards for his role in the XML industry, such as PC Magazine, Technical Excellence Award - co-creator of XML (1998), InfoWorld - Top Technology Innovators Award 2003, IDEAlliance - XML Cup (2004).