Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) announced on its cautious-looking forward but better-than-expected earnings call Thursday that 10-year veteran Omid Kordestani (employee No. 12) is handing over management of the company's global sales and partnership operations to Nikesh Arora, currently president of international operations, and is stepping into a new role as senior adviser to CEO Eric Schmidt and founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
"While [Kordestani] hasn't exactly left for good, his decision to step down follows the departure of several other high-profile executives in Google's sales organization -- signaling even more strongly that the bloom is finally coming off the rose," points out tech blog VentureBeat.
"It's arguable that the trend started last spring with Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of global online sales and operations, leaving for the chief operating officer post at Facebook -- but that seems like a stretch," says VentureBeat. "What's more convincing is the triple-bail of U.S. sales head Tim Armstrong, Latin America sales chief Gonzalo Alonso, and Asia-Pacific and Latin America operations president Sukhinder Singh Cassidy in the past two months. Sure, they left for coveted opportunities at AOL LLC (coveted is a relative term), Globant and Accel Partners, respectively. But since when do pampered Google employees opt to rejoin the corporate establishment?"
Add to Michael Adair to the list. He departed Google, where he headed North American sales finance, back in July to become vice president of corporate development and finance at the start-up Glam Media, the online ad network that targets women, and raised a $84.6 million Series D last year. -- Mary Kathleen Flynn
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