With the resignation of Nikesh Arora as Chief Business Officer of Google, the online search giant’s top management circle, popularly known as the ‘L Team’, is left with only one or two India-born executives.
This is in sharp contrast to U.S software giant Microsoft, which recently promoted India-born Satya Nadella as its new CEO.
Mr. Arora, who was widely regarded as CEO Larry Page’s right hand man, resigned on Friday after working for the company for nearly ten years. He will join Japan’s SoftBank Corp, which has interests in India through a joint venture with telecom major Bharti Airtel.
Interestingly, Mr. Arora sat on the board of Bharti Airtel for the last six years, and stepped down only four months ago. In India, Bharti Enterprises and Softbank have a 50:50 joint venture called Bharti Softbank, which is an application development company.
“Nikesh Arora, our Chief Business Officer, has decided to leave Google to join one of our partners, SoftBank, as Vice-Chairman of SoftBank Corp and CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media,” said a company blogpost. "I remember first meeting him at the British Museum, which for some reason (Google co-founder) Sergey (Brin) had decided would be a good interview location. Nikesh has been a tremendous leader, adviser and mentor to many Googlers - including me. We have learned a lot together, and had a lot of fun along the way,” said Mr. Page in the blogpost.
Three months ago, Vic Gundotra, Google's India-born senior vice-president for social and one of the creators of Google Plus, also left the company after working for almost eight years.
One of the remaining India-born members of the L team, which is short for Larry’s (Page) team, is Sundar Pichai, who heads the team that concentrates on developing the Android operating system.
PTI report: > Nikesh Arora leaves Google, joins SoftBank Corp
