Google ad chief Ramaswamy exits; search veteran Prabhakar Raghavan replaces him
After spending almost 15 years at Google as its top advertising executive, Sridhar Ramaswamy, is moving to venture capital firm Greylock Partners.
Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Google’s business-applications unit, will step into his role tomorrow. A veteran of search technology and artificial intelligence research, Raghavan will now oversee product and engineering for the world’s largest digital-ads business, which is on course to generate more than $100 Bn in sales this year.
Prabhakar had joined Google in 2011, and Pichai tapped him in 2014 to oversee Google’s suite of cloud-based business apps, including Drive, Docs and Hangouts. He will be responsible for maintaining the pace of growth at Google’s search and display ad operations and developing new revenue sources while preventing commercial goals from influencing the company’s consumer services.
Prabhakar stated, “The ecosystem remains strong. The business remains strong. The team is fantastic. My focus is on how to take that fantastic machine and keep it going rather than being a bull in a china shop.’
Meanwhile, Ramaswamy is joining Greylock Partners as a venture partner. Ramaswamy led the ads business for more than five years. During that time, the company adjusted search results and ads to run on smaller smartphone screens. He also spearheaded the development of new Google shopping, travel, video, and app-install ads that have brought in billions of dollars in revenue. Ad sales jumped 24% in the second quarter of this year.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement, “I’ve worked with Prabhakar over many years now and can think of no better person to lead our monetization efforts. Prabhakar has incredible management experience, and the deep technical expertise to match.’
A Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, before joining Google, Raghavan headed Yahoo’s research lab where he worked on search, ad ranking, ad exchanges, and marketplaces.
Image Credits: Google