In July 2019, Google Cloud set the goal of tripling its salesforce over the next few years, but it has since gone on a hiring spree in other areas as well.
The unit has signed on a slew of executives to help it target specific industries like finance, manufacturing, telecommunications, and healthcare, as well as leaders to focus on expanding its operations worldwide — including in Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia — as it tries to win market share from Amazon and Microsoft, which it still trails behind significantly.
This year alone, Google Cloud has hired industry executives like Lori Mitchell-Keller as vice president of industry solutions, Derek White as vice president of global financial services, and Abdul Razack as vice president of engineering strategy.
Meanwhile, Google Cloud has seen some departures, too, including former CFO Steffan Tomlinson and Tariq Shaukat, former president of industry products and solutions.
Here are all of Google Cloud's biggest hires and departures in 2020:
Departure: Tariq Shaukat, former president of industry products and solutions
In February, Google Cloud underwent a reorganization to streamline operations in international markets, its partner ecosystem, and customer engagement, sources told Business Insider at the time. As part of this reorg, the president of industry products and solutions, Tariq Shaukat, left the cloud division entirely, while a "small number" of employees had their roles eliminated.
Shaukat spent over four years at Google where he led initiatives to target specific industries like finance and healthcare, including a major deal with the IT-services giant Accenture.
Shaukat left Google altogether in July and to join dating app Bumble as president.
Departure: Steffan Tomlinson, former CFO and vice president of technical infrastructure
In June, the $4.5 billion startup Confluent nabbed Google Cloud CFO Steffan Tomlinson, CNBC's Ari Levy first reported. Tomlinson took the position as Confluent's new CFO as the startup prepares for an IPO.
Tomlinson joined Google Cloud in 2019 and served as its CFO and vice president of technical infrastructure. Prior to that, he served as Palo Alto Networks' CFO, where he took the company public in 2012 and worked for over six years. He had also served as Aruba Networks' CFO, where he led the company through its IPO in 2007.
Departure: Dr. Nicole Forsgren, founder and CEO of DevOps Research and Assessment
Nicole Forsgren founded DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA), which does research on how developer teams can be more productive. After Google Cloud acquired DORA in 2018, Forsgren helped lead research and strategy there.
In March, GitHub announced that it had hired Forsgren as vice president of research and strategy to conduct research on the open source community, developer productivity, and related topics. With a background in academia, Forsgren is seen as a leading expert in DevOps – a term that blends of "development" and "operations" and is intended to help programmers deliver software faster.
Hire: Paul Wilson, managing director of public sector for Asia Pacific and Japan
Paul Wilson, based in Singapore, joined Google Cloud in February as its managing director of public sector for Asia Pacific and Japan.
Before Google Cloud, Wilson spent his career leading sales and services organizations as well as developing strategies for the public sector. He has worked at Autodesk, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft.
Hire: Karan Bajwa, managing director for Google Cloud India
Karan Bajwa joined as Google Cloud India's managing director in March after working as a managing director at IBM for nearly four years.
Prior to that he worked at Microsoft, where he led its business in India, as well as Cisco, where he led the public sector business in India.
Hire: Sanj Bhayro, EMEA vice president of operations and customer growth
Sanj Bhayro, who is based in Ireland, joined Google Cloud as its vice president of operations and customer growth for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in March. He is responsible for leading sales, operations, customer engineering, business development, technology, and its Workspace collaboration software suite in that region.
Before Google, Bhayro spent 14 years at Salesforce in various leadership positions in EMEA, most recently as COO.
Hire: Anil Bhansali, vice president of engineering for Google Cloud India
Anil Bhansali joined Google Cloud India in April as its vice president of engineering.
Bhansali is a Microsoft veteran, having spent 17 years there, most recently as a corporate vice president. He had also served as general manager of Microsoft's cloud and enterprise division.
Hire: Brian Hall, vice president of product and industry marketing
Brian Hall left his post as vice president of product marketing at Amazon Web Services in April and joined Google Cloud as its vice president of product and industry marketing in May. Hall had spent nearly two years at Amazon Web Services, and prior to that, he was a long-time Microsoft veteran.
When Hall joined Google Cloud, Amazon filed a noncompete lawsuit against him, arguing that his move to Google put Amazon's confidential information at risk. In July, Hall posted on LinkedIn that he has been cleared to work.
Hire: Lori Mitchell-Keller, vice president of industry solutions
Under the leadership of CEO Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud is targeting six industries: retail, financial services, health care, manufacturing, media and entertainment, and the public sector. And in May, Google Cloud hired Lori Mitchell-Keller as its vice president of industry solutions to lead the strategy of all six, as well as work with their sales and marketing teams. She reports to Rob Enslin, Google Cloud's president of global customer operations.
Prior to Google, Mitchell-Keller spent 13 years at SAP, where she led sales and partner strategy for 20 industries, including financial services, healthcare, and retail.
Hire: George Nazi, vice president of industry solutions in telecommunications, media, and entertainment
In May, Google Cloud hired George Nazi as its vice president of industry solutions in telecommunications, media, and entertainment. He leads the strategy for those sectors and also collaborates with Google Cloud's artificial intelligence team to develop new products.
Before Google, Nazi spent seven years at Accenture, including as the global communications and media industry lead. He had also worked at a British telecom company for almost seven years, bringing to Google Cloud experience that can help in winning over telecom customers and partners – something Google Cloud announced would be a priority this year.
Hire: Andi Gutmans, vice president of engineering, databases
Andi Gutmans joined Google Cloud in May as a general manager and vice president of engineering for Google Cloud's databases. Previously, he was vice president of analytics at Amazon Web Services, where he worked for over four years.
At AWS, Gutmans was instrumental in building out its cloud-data-warehousing and analytics capabilities. He helped lead initiatives like Open Distro for Elasticsearch, its open-source version of the popular Elasticsearch search project.
Hire: Abdul Razack, vice president of engineering strategy
Former SAP chief product officer Abdul Razack joined Google Cloud this June as its vice president of engineering strategy.
Razack is a SAP veteran, having spent a total of 15 years there helping to lead its cloud strategy, with a three-year stint at Infosys splitting his tenure.
Now, at Google Cloud, his goal is to help cloud customers find value in its products and bring "resiliency and scale to businesses in these uncertain times," according to a statement Google made at his hiring.
Hire: Yolande Piazza, vice president of financial services
In June, Google Cloud hired long-time Citi executive Yolande Piazza as its vice president of financial services. Piazza spent over three decades at Citigroup, most recently as the CEO of Citi Fintech, which leads mobile efforts for Citi's consumer bank.
Now, Piazza heads North American financial services sales and customer engineering teams at Google, where she creates new solutions specifically tarted at Wall Street customers. She reports to Kirsten Kliphouse, president of North America for Google Cloud.
Google Cloud has been sharpening its efforts to bring on Wall Street and banking customers. Already, it has signed on clients like HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and KeyBank.
Hire: Jose Pastor, vice president of product management for the Workspace
Jose Pastor joined Google Cloud in July as vice president of product management for Workspace, Google Cloud's suite of office collaboration and communication software.
He brings in experience working with video and voice conferencing tools, having spent over eight years at RingCentral, most recently as senior vice president of product management, where he led its Voice, Video, and Collaboration product lines.
Hire: Hans Thalbauer, managing director, global supply chain, logistics, and transportation solutions
Hans Thalbauer spent over two decades at SAP before joining Google Cloud in August. Thalbauer works as the managing director of global supply chain, logistics, and transportation at Google Cloud.
Before Google Cloud, Thalbauer served various executive positions at SAP. Most recently, he was senior vice president of industrial transformation initiatives, where he worked with the manufacturing industry.
Hire: Paula Natoli, director, global supply chain, logistics, and transportation solutions
Paula Natoli has spent over two decades working in supply chain solutions with manufacturing, retail, and wholesale distribution companies before joining Google Cloud as its new director of supply chain, logistics, and transportation industry solutions in July. She reports to Thalbauer.
Currently, she sets the strategy for products for supply chain, logistics, and transportation customers in North America and Latin America. She also works closely with the product, engineering, and sales teams to build out and sell these solutions.
Before Google Cloud, Natoli worked at Blue Yonder as group vice president of product management.
Hire: Laurence Lafont, vice president of EMEA industries
Laurence Lafont, who is based in France, joined Google Cloud in September as its vice president of industry sales for the EMEA region. She leads the industry sales organization to target customers in specific industries.
Prior to Google Cloud, Lafont spent over eight years at Microsoft, mostly recently as a COO, but having held other roles, like public sector lead for France, where she worked with public companies, local and regional governments, healthcare organizations, and educational institutions.
Lafont had also worked at Nokia and Oracle and, in 2000, was the COO and cofounder of a French startup called Woonoz, according to her LinkedIn.
Hire: Derek White, vice president of global financial services
In September, Google Cloud added former US Bank exec Derek White to its team as the vice president of global financial services.
White joined Google Cloud after serving as chief digital officer at US Bank, a role he held since July 2019. Before that, he was the global head of client solutions for Spanish financial firm BBVA and also spent over eight years at Barclays, where he held various senior roles focused on tech and the customer experience.
White will be key to Google Cloud's push to win over financial firms and reports to Lori Mitchell-Keller.
Hire: Joe Miles, managing director of healthcare and life sciences
Long-time SAP veteran Joe Miles joined Google Cloud in September as its managing director for healthcare and life sciences industries, managing products for those sectors.
Before Google Cloud, Miles spent 17 years at SAP, where he led strategies for those same sectors and learned how to build tools that comply with various healthcare regulations.
Hire: Samuel Bonamigo, vice president of Southern Europe
Samuel Bonamigo, who is based in France, joined Google Cloud as its vice president of Southern Europe in September.
He's a veteran of Salesforce and Oracle, serving most recently as senior vice president and deputy general manager at Salesforce, where he spent over a decade. Before Salesforce, he was sales director at Oracle, where he worked for 12 years.
Hire: Suchitra Bose, director of process manufacturing for the Americas
In October, Google Cloud hired Suchitra Bose as its director of process manufacturing for the Americas. Bose previously led Accenture's digital manufacturing and operations practice.
Currently, she's developing Google Cloud's manufacturing industry strategy and focusing on sales, partnerships, customer support, and more.
Google Cloud has been investing heavily in selling to specific industries, including manufacturing. It's a major opportunity, as Gartner predicts that by the end of 2026, at least 80% of manufacturers worldwide will have adopted cloud applications built specifically for their industry.
Hire: Daniel Holz, vice president of EMEA North
Daniel Holz, who is based in Germany, joined Google Cloud in October as its vice president of EMEA North. Prior to that, Holz spent over 10 years at SAP, most recently as the managing director of SAP Germany.
Before SAP, Holz worked at IBM as a business unit leader and Oracle as a senior sales manager.
Hire: Ruma Balasubramanian, managing director of Southeast Asia
Ruma Balasubramanian just joined Google Cloud in December. As the managing director of Southeast Asia, she's responsible for sales strategy, operational execution, and building customer and partner relationships in the region.
Balasubramanian, who is based in Singapore, has worked with businesses in various industries, including financial services, automotive, healthcare, and education. Before Google Cloud, Balasubramanian worked at Cisco for eight years. Most recently, she was a vice president and chief transformation officer at Cisco.
Phil Venables, chief information security officer
Phil Venables joined Google Cloud this month as its chief information security officer, leading the unit's cybersecurity and more.
Prior to Google Cloud, Venables spent two decades at Goldman Sachs, most recently as an operating partner who provided support for companies in cybersecurity, IT risk, and more.