Three years after longtime Google board member Diane Green took the helm at Google Cloud, she announced her plans to step down.
“When I joined Google full-time to run Cloud in December 2015, I told my family and friends that it would be for two years. Now, after an unbelievably stimulating and productive three years, it’s time to turn to the passions I’ve long had around mentoring and education,” Greene wrote in a blog post.
She will be succeeded by Thomas Kurian. Kurian headed Oracle’s cloud efforts until earlier this year when he left that company after reportedly clashing with mercurial co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison.
“I’m excited to join the fantastic Google Cloud team at this important and promising time. I’m looking forward to building on the success of recent years as it enters its next phase of growth,” Kurian said.
“Thomas Kurian, a respected technologist, and executive will be joining Google Cloud on November 26th and transitioning into the Google Cloud leadership role in early 2019. Sundar, Urs and I all interviewed Thomas, and I believe that he’ll do an amazing job helping to take Google Cloud to the next level. Thomas has 22 years of experience at Oracle; most recently he was President of Product Development,” Greene went on to add.
She will, however, continue to work through January to help Thomas’ transition into the role. “I will continue as CEO through January, working with Thomas to ensure a smooth transition. I will remain a Director on the Alphabet board,” she said.
“We have moved Google Cloud from having only two significant customers and a collection of startups to having major Fortune 1000 enterprises betting their future on Google Cloud, something we should accept as a great compliment as well as a huge responsibility,” Greene wrote. “I am especially grateful to all of our customers, partners, and employees for an amazing three years of getting to work with you.”
“In a few short years, under Diane’s leadership, Cloud has become an incredible business built on Google’s decades of investment in infrastructure, data security, and AI. Today, those investments are available to everyone and truly changing the way people work. I have a deep appreciation for everything Diane has done and I’m super happy that we’ll continue to benefit from her wisdom as she continues serving on our Board of Directors. We’re really excited to welcome Thomas whose product vision, customer focus, and deep expertise will be a huge asset to our growing Cloud business,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement.
