Mr. Smith’s political skills have led to some speculation that he will pursue elected office. For now, though, he is putting those skills to use for Microsoft and the technology industry, particularly after the disclosures by Edward J. Snowden of government efforts to collect private data from online services operated by Microsoft, Google and others without search warrants and subpoenas. The leaks shook executives throughout the industry, many of whom worry about damage to the appeal of their products.

Last year, Mr. Smith equated government snooping with other serious threats like malware and cyberattacks, and he also led an industry push for changes in how the government collects data.

“People won’t use technology they don’t trust, and we need to take the kinds of steps to sustain that trust,” he said in an interview last week.

An earlier policy issue facing Microsoft suggests how Mr. Smith likes to handle problems with pragmatism. When he interviewed for the general counsel job in 2001 with Bill Gates and other senior leaders of the company, Microsoft was facing a litany of penalties in its antitrust battle with the Justice Department, narrowly avoiding a government-ordered breakup of the company.

But a new wave of antitrust battles in Europe and from private companies loomed. During his interview, Mr. Smith showed the executives a single slide declaring that Microsoft needed to make peace with its foes.

At the time, Microsoft was widely seen as a bully. People who know Mr. Smith said that changing the company’s legal stance in the antitrust case, as well as later legal stances the company has taken, helped soften the company’s public image. Microsoft’s repeated stumbles with important products have also made the company seem less fearsome.

After the Snowden disclosures, Mr. Smith pursued an industrywide effort to limit the damage. In July of last year, Mr. Smith picked up the phone and called his counterpart at Google, Kent Walker, to explore whether the companies could gain strength by working together on a settlement with the government on data collection.