Former Oracle executive Thomas Kurian to head Google Cloud

Former Oracle President of product development and technologist Thomas Kurian will head Google Cloud from early next year, the tech giant announced.

The current CEO of Google Cloud Diane Greene will continue through January, working with Thomas to ensure a smooth transition. Diane will continue to remain a Director on the board of Alphabet, Google's parent company.

Ms Greene said in a statement, “Kurian, a respected technologist and executive, will be joining Google Cloud on November 26 and transitioning into the Google Cloud leadership role in early 2019.”

Kurian, who hails from Bengaluru, worked at Oracle for 22 years. He had reportedly quit in September over disagreements with Executive Chairman and CTO Larry Ellison over the future course of the company as Cloud business gets highly competitive.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated, “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.”

Kurian was a member of Oracle's Executive Committee for 13 Years. He led a 35,000-people software development team in 32 countries and was instrumental in the transformation of Oracle's products with introduction of leading suite of Cloud Services.

On his appointment Kurian stated, “I'm looking forward to building on the success of recent years as it enters its next phase of growth.”

Under Ms Greene's leadership, Cloud has become an incredible business for Google, which has moved from having only two significant customers and a collection of startups to having major Fortune 1,000 enterprises signing up for Google Cloud. With Kurian at the helm, Google gets a much seasoned professional to lead the ever increasingly important cloud business.

Image Credits: CRN