It’s been around ten years since Larry Page held the CEO position at Google, and now that he’s back in charge after Eric Schmidt stepped aside to allow the Google co-founder to take the reigns, it would seem he’s keen to make his mark on the now-huge company, and has this week dramatically reshuffled Google’s top brass in an attempt to return the company to the agile, innovative beast it once was.
Page has simplified the management structure, separating each division into their own autonomous unit, headed up by one executive who will be able to act independently to move their product forward, according to a report in the LA Times.
Andy Rubin will get a bump from VP of Engineering to SVP of Mobile, Sundar Pichai has become SVP of Chrome (presumably both browser and OS versions), Salar Kamangar is now SVP of YouTube and video, Alan Eustace is SVP of search and Susan Wojcicki moves to SVP of Advertising.
Perhaps the biggest tasks of them all falls to Vic Gundotra, who will become SVP of Social. Google’s previous social efforts have almost without fail fallen flat, with Buzz even resulting in Google getting a slap on the wrist from the FTC for privacy breaches. The task is made all the more onerous by rumours that Page has tied all employee bonuses this year to how successful Google’s social efforts are – so if Gundotra should fail, he most likely won’t be very popular in the Google canteen come Christmas time.
All of these new Senior Vice Presidents will report directly to Page, and it is hoped that this new found autonomy will stir more innovation in the company, which has come under criticism of late for lacking the vim and vigour it was once so famous for.
