Google has announced that Prabhakar Raghavan, the executive overseeing the company’s search engine and advertising products, will be stepping down from his current role.
The news came on Thursday in a memo from CEO Sundar Pichai to staff.
Nick Fox To Lead Search & Ads
Taking over Raghavan’s responsibilities will be Nick Fox, a longtime Google executive with experience across various departments.
Fox will now lead the Knowledge & Information team, which includes Google’s Search, Ads, Geo, and Commerce products.
Pichai expressed confidence in Fox’s ability to lead these crucial divisions, noting:
“Throughout his career, Nick has demonstrated leadership across nearly every facet of Knowledge & Information, from Product and Design in Search and Assistant, to our Shopping, Travel, and Payments products.”
Raghavan’s New Role
Raghavan will transition to the newly created position of Chief Technologist.
He will work closely with Pichai and other Google leaders in this role to provide technical direction.
Pichai praised Raghavan’s contributions, stating:
“Prabhakar’s leadership journey at Google has been remarkable, spanning Research, Workspace, Ads, and Knowledge & Information. He led the Gmail team in launching Smart Reply and Smart Compose as early examples of using AI to improve products, and took Gmail and Drive past 1 billion users.”
Past Criticisms
This recent announcement from Google comes in the wake of earlier criticisms leveled at the company’s search division.
In April, an opinion piece from Ed Zitron highlighted concerns about the direction of Google Search under Raghavan’s leadership.