Here are 12 of the most important executives leading Google Cloud as it takes on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure (GOOG, GOOGL)
- Google Cloud is competing with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft for bigger share in the fast-growing cloud market.
- These 12 executives are leading Google's bid to expand its reach in cloud computing.
- These executives are focused on expanding sales, partnerships, and customer relationships, as well as building technology like artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure.
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With Amazon and Microsoft gobbling up large portions of the share on the cloud market, Google Cloud is playing catch-up.
Still, since former Oracle veteran Thomas Kurian took the reins as Google Cloud CEO, it's expanded on its ambitions.
It's hired a new leader, Robert Enslin from SAP, to head sales, customer operations, and partnerships. At the time of its last earnings call in July, Google revealed that its cloud business has an annual revenue run rate of $8 billion, even as Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Google Cloud plans to triple its sales force in the next few years.
On top of that, Google Cloud recently made changes in its sales organization to go after bigger customers and reward high-performing sales employees. It's even making some big acquisitions, such as its $2.6 billion acquisition of data analytics startup Looker.
Google Cloud is also releasing more products to cater to enterprises. For example, it launched Anthos, a hybrid cloud product – meaning it allows customers to run their applications and data not only on Google Cloud, but also on private data centers. Notably, it can even run on rival clouds – a strategy Kurian reportedly tried to execute at Oracle. With Anthos, Google Cloud beat Amazon to launching a generally available hybrid cloud product.
It's also launching products to hone in on specific industries like retail. Some analysts say that these changes at Google Cloud, which seem to be borrowed from Oracle, could drive a cultural clash.
"Today, Google's enterprise division is very different than it was just a few years ago as it continues to change its attitude toward understanding customer needs and 'meeting the customer where the customer is,' David Smith, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, wrote. "New bold leadership at Google Cloud is allowing more focus on opportunities that leverage synergies between its cloud business and advertising and marketing."
Still, experts say Google Cloud is playing up its strengths. Some of its advantages, customers say, are its innovation. Another is its deep roots in Kubernetes, a cloud project for running large scale applications that was started by Google engineers. It's also partnering with smaller companies that built their business around open source software.
Jeb Su, vice president of advanced technologies at Atherton Technology Research, says it's possible Google Cloud will hit $18-20 billion in annual revenue by 2020.
"I think what Thomas Kurian and his team realize is that it's going to be hard to beat AWS and Azure on the public cloud and public infrastructure," Su told Business Insider. "However, they realize that even before he got into Google, there are great technologies...That's all because of Google's expertise in crawling the web and dealing with this massive scale of data so Google is very strong in that area. They're positioning Google's cloud offering in terms of focused industry specific solutions."
As Google Cloud aims to become a larger cloud player, these are the 12 executives who are leading the charge.
Thomas Kurian is making big changes as Google Cloud's CEO.
Title: CEO, Google Cloud
Reports to: Google CEO Sundar Pichai
Thomas Kurian joined Google in November 2018. He took the place of former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene, who announced her departure late last year.
Before Google, Kurian spent 22 years at Google, where he most recently served as the president of product development. And prior to Oracle, he worked at McKinsey as a business analyst and engagement manager.
Currently, Kurian serves as a member of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council and Princeton University School of Engineering Advisory Council.
Recently, Business Insider reported that under Kurian, Google Cloud has changed how it compensates salespeople to focus more on bonuses and incentives – a move that's similar to what Oracle does.
"He's basically applying the Oracle playbook," Jeb Su, vice president of advanced technologies at Atherton Technology Research, told Business Insider. "He's reinforcing the salesforce and changing how salespeople are paid...What Kurian is doing is really transforming Google Cloud as a real enterprise software company with the right incentives in terms of sales and with the appropriate salesforce."
Overall, David Smith, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, believes that Kurian is doubling down on the enterprise efforts that former Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene began.
"With the arrival of Thomas Kurian, we see more discipline in pricing and a renewed, more focused investment in building a larger, more capable enterprise sales team," Smith wrote. "These are encouraging signs, but we believe there will still be a transition period of several years as sales teams are built and/or reoriented to sell the traditional enterprise value propositions of the public cloud," Smith said.
Robert Enslin spent nearly three decades at SAP.
Title: President of Global Customer Operations
Reports to: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian
Robert Enslin joined Google Cloud in April to head up global customer operations, which includes sales and working with customers and partners.
Before Google, Enslin spent 27 years at SAP and served in various sales and operations roles. Most recently, he worked as president of the cloud business group and an executive board member. At SAP, he developed and managed the company's cloud product portfolio.
Besides working in tech, Enslin sits on the Board of Directors of Discovery Limited in South Africa and the container startup Docker.
Jeb Su, vice president of advanced technologies at Atherton Technology Research, says Enslin is bringing a major focus on customers from SAP to Google Cloud.
"He's doing two things," Su said. "First of all, he's really there to understand what are the needs of enterprise customers. That's really important because you can have the best technology in the world, but if you can't understand what customers need it's pointless. Then from that understanding of customers, he's really building solutions, and that's what Google lacks."
Hiring Enslin was one of Google's "significant strides" to make its cloud business more viable, David Smith, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner, wrote.
"Actions include hiring Thomas Kurian and Rob Enslin, strategic investments in sales and marketing, and partnerships with integrators and service firms to drive more enterprise adoption," Smith wrote. "We look for increased focus on the enterprise to pay dividends for Google as it gains greater adoption over the next year."
Tariq Shaukat is responsible for growing partnerships and customers.
Title: President of Global Alliances and Industry Platforms
Reports to: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian
Tariq Shaukat heads global alliances and industry platforms, which means he leads Google Cloud's strategy around partnerships and customers, as well as customer operations. Before he took on this role, he was the president of customers at Google Cloud.
Prior to Google, Shaukat served as the chief commercial officer of casino giant Caesars Entertainment, where he oversaw sales, marketing, information technology, analytics, product, and more. He also previously served as the company's chief marketing officer.
Shaukat had also worked at McKinsey & Company as a partner, where he worked with clients in the financial services, travel, media, and entertainment industries.
Before Google, John Jester worked at Microsoft for nearly 20 years.
Title: Vice President of Customer Experience
Reports to: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian
John Jester is the vice president of customer experience at Google Cloud. This means he's responsible for developing and executing strategies that make sure customers are getting good value out of Google Cloud. In other words, this includes professional services, training, and customer support.
Before Google, Jester worked at Microsoft for 20 years. Most recently, he was the corporate vice president of worldwide customer success, where he started a new organization to help Microsoft's customers adopt its Azure cloud.
He had also served as vice president of worldwide specialist sales, where he led enterprise sales strategy for Microsoft's cloud services, as well as general manager of global accounts, where he was responsible for Microsoft's top 100 enterprise customers.
Kirsten Kliphouse joined Google Cloud from Red Hat in July.
Title: President of North America Sales
Reports to: Rob Enslin, president of global customer operations
Kirsten Kliphouse leads Google Cloud sales across North America. She joined in July, and is based in Florida.
Most recently, she served as senior vice president and general manager of North America Commercial Sales at Red Hat. There, she led sales, marketing, consulting, among other things.
Before that, she was CEO of an early-stage connected devices company called Yardarm Technologies, and spent nearly 10 years at Microsoft in various leadership roles, such as vice president of enterprise sales and partners, and corporate vice president of the customer service and support division.
"She's the next in the series of new leaders that Thomas Kurian and Rob Enslin are bringing in," Tony Safoian, CEO of SADA, a Google Cloud partner, told Business Insider. "They're deploying certain structures in their go-to-market plan that are more meaningful to partners and create a better customer experience."
Urs Hölzle was Google's first Vice President of engineering.
Title: Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure
Reports to: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian
As senior vice president of technical infrastructure, Urs Hölzle oversees how servers, networks and Google's data centers are designed and operated, as well as how Google Cloud's software infrastructure is developed. He makes sure Google Cloud's infrastructure is available to developers worldwide.
Hölzle was Google's first vice president of engineering, and he helped the search giant scale up its technical operations in its early days to become the web giant that it is today.
Before that, he was an associate professor of computer science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Kevin Ichhpurani is a 12-year SAP veteran.
Title: Corporate Vice President of Global Ecosystem and Business Development
Reports to: Tariq Shaukat, president of global alliances and industry platforms
Kevin Ichhpurani serves as the corporate vice president of global ecosystem and business development. Over nearly 24 years in the technology industry, he has led global strategy, venture capital, mergers, and acquisitions.
Most recently, he served as executive vice president and corporate officer of GE Digital. Prior to that, he was a senior partner of global markets at Ernst and Young. And before that, he spent 12 years at SAP, where he had served as executive vice president and head of business development and global ecosystem.
Before Google, Carolee Gearhart worked at GE Digital.
Title: Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales
Reports to: Robert Enslin, president of global customer operations
Carolee Gearheart has worked in the industry for over 20 years, including nearly seven years at SAP.
Currently, Gearheart is the vice president of worldwide channel sales at Google Cloud. In her role, she's responsible for global channel strategy and Google Cloud's relationship with reseller partners.
Before Google Cloud, she served as chief ecosystem at channels officer at GE Digital, where she led the strategy and execution for GE Digital's partner relationships.
Andrew Moore has conducted research on big data and helping robots be more useful.
Title: Head of Google Cloud Artificial Intelligence
Reports to: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian
Andrew Moore, PhD, became the head of Google Cloud Artificial intelligence in January. But he's no newcomer to Google.
Before Google, he worked for 13 years as a computer science professor at Carnegie Melon University. Starting in 2006, he worked at Google and was the founding director of Google's Pittsburgh engineering office, where he's still based. From 2011 to 2014, he served as the vice president of engineering for Google Commerce, which includes Google's shopping and offers features.
He took a four-year hiatus in 2014 to become the dean of Carnegie Melon University's School of Computer Science. Now, he's back at Google heading up Google Cloud Artificial Intelligence.
Moore conducts research in big data, meaning that he applies statistical methods and math formulas to analyze massive quantities of information like web searches, astronomy, and medical records.
Previously, he has also conducted research on improving the ability of robots to sense and respond to the world around them.
Will Grannis founded Google Cloud's CTO office.
Title: Managing director of CTO office
Reports to: Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian
Will Grannis founded Google Cloud's CTO office, which is a team of senior engineers that help Google work better with its largest and most important customers.
Before joining Google five years ago, Grannis had worked as an entrepreneur, enterprise technology executive, and investor. He spent over six years at Boeing as a general manager leading product. Prior to working in tech, Grannis served as a captain in the US Army.
Eduardo Lopez, a 20-year Oracle veteran, just joined Google Cloud in July.
Title: President of Latin America Sales
Reports to: Robert Enslin, president of global customer operations
Eduardo Lopez just joined Google Cloud in July after working at Oracle for 20 years. Now, he's leading the Latin America sales team.
At Oracle, he most recently served as senior vice president for solution engineering, enterprise architects, and industry innovation.
Lopez has spent much time working with the Latin America region. For example, at Oracle, he had held executive positions at Oracle's Latin America division. Prior to that, he was vice president of Oracle Brazil.
Nina Harding is a veteran of SAP, Microsoft, and Oracle.
Title: Chief of Global Partner Programs and Strategy
Reports to: Carolee Gearhart, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Google Cloud
Nina Harding serves as Google Cloud's chief of global partner programs and strategy. Before Google, Harding worked as SAP for over 12 years, where she launched partner programs and led the company's partner strategies.
Prior to that, Harding worked at Microsoft for about two years, where she helped advise its top partners on using Windows and other technologies. She has also spent time with startups like Cacheon and Formida, as well as a stint with Oracle for over seven years, where she built customer and sales programs.
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