Tucked into the first quarter report that showed an 8.45 per cent increase in Google's net profitability was another announcement. Nikesh Arora, president, international operations and known for running Google Europe, would be replacing Omid Kordestsani, the current global sales boss.
This will make him the top-ranking Indian in Google.
Here's what the Google statement said:
'After ten years of building and managing our global sales and partnership operations, Omid Kordestani has decided to hand over the reins to Nikesh Arora, currently president of international operations, and take on a new role as senior advisor, office of the CEO and founders.
'Continued growth is essential to our future success and no one is better placed to advise on new revenue opportunities than Omid, the business founder of Google.
'In his new role as president, global sales operations and business development, Nikesh Arora will have responsibility for all Google's revenue and customer operations, as well as marketing and partnerships. He has a proven track record at Google, having spent the last four and a half years building our European operations into a substantial business.
Here's some more interesting info about Arora. The Independent reports that Arora, who is nearly 40, was recruited by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in an interview conducted among the artefacts of the British Museum.
'We walked around. We looked at the exhibits and a lot of our conversation was about the Rosetta stone,' says Arora, referring to an Egyptian artefact that dates to 196BC and is inscribed in three languages. The Greek wording enabled scholars to decipher the hieroglyphics and was a major breakthrough in Egyptology. Arora says: 'We discussed how it was an amazing parallel to Google translating its services around the world.'
As this informal interview concluded, Arora left the museum but Brin continued to tour the exhibits. Ten days later Arora learned that he had the job.
He was the first Google vice president to be appointed outside the US
Here's something else he told The Independent: 'I enjoy working in places which are very fast-moving and where things are changing. As my life takes on a steady pattern I do things to undo the pattern,' he says.
Before joining Google, Arora was chief marketing officer and a member of the management board at T-Mobile, where he's said to have spearheaded all product development, terminals, brand and marketing activities of T-Mobile Europe.
He started working with Deutsche Telekom in 1999 and founded T-Motion PLC, a mobile multimedia subsidiary of T-Mobile International. In his pre-Deutsche Telekom days, Nikesh held management positions at Putnam Investments and Fidelity Investments in Boston.
Arora holds a master's degree and CFA certification from Boston College, an MBA from Northeastern University and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Institute of Technology in Varanasi, India.
Times Online adds that Arora was born in Delhi to a father who was a financial planner for the Indian Air Force and a mother with a master's degree in mathematics. He left India at the age of 21 to study for an MBA in the United States.
Clearly, he didn't look back.
Photograph: Eloy Alonso/Reuters
