Google Cloud Welcomes New North American Head of Sales

Like many companies in the technology industry, Google has been going through a digital transformation process over the last couple of years. We've seen plenty of evidence of the brand investing in new disruptive solutions and expanding its offering for customers from all environments. Year after year, the Cloud Next events have highlighted incredible new experiences available through the Google Cloud, including opportunities to access artificial intelligence with more simplicity than ever before.

Now, we're beginning to see evidence of Google's cloud-based growth strategy in the form of new C-Suite executives joining the team. This year, Google Cloud embraced a new CEO in Thomas Kurian, taking over the leadership position from Diane Greene. This evolution in leadership marked a new era in the Google Cloud. After all, while Greene had helped Google to transform and evolve into a more reliable enterprise technology vendor, there was still work to be done. 

Kurian's role now is to build on the powerful foundations that are available for the Google Cloud, and drastically expand its reach. Already, the cloud industry has begun to see evidence of Kurian's success after he claimed that he wanted to begin competing far more "aggressively" in the cloud market as of 2019. Initially, this meant developing a stronger sales and support staff base. Now, Google Cloud is also bringing on its first North American sales head. 

Introducing the New North American Head of Sales

This is the first time that the Google Cloud team has brought in a head of sales for the North American region. It makes sense that Google would want to get the extra high-level help in place, particularly now that the group is focusing more on pursuing enterprise companies, mid-market brands, and a wider range of small to mid-sized businesses. Kristen Kliphouse will give Google more reach as the GCP and G-Suite continues to evolve. 

Kliphouse will also be responsible for overseeing how customers use G-Suite alongside the range of broader Google services available. 

The new executive hire comes at a time when company has only recently acquired three new companies, including Looker (data analytics firm) for $2.6 billion in June of 2019. Google has also recently announced that the Alphabet company, Chronicle would be moving into the Google environment, and that cloud storage business Elastifile will be expanding GCP functionality too. 

Alongside Kristen Kliphouse, Kurian also recently brought former Oracle colleague Eduardo Lopez into the mix, as the first Cloud sales head of Latin America. Lopez and Kirsten are both pioneering business leaders who should provide Google with the strength it needs to continue building effective relationships with leading customers like Whirlpool, UPS, HSBC, and many more. The two executive hires both bring years of experience running multi-billion-dollar organizations to their roles with Google. 

Transforming the Google Executive Suite

Kliphouse was most recently employed at the Red Hat company, which now belongs to IBM. She also spent almost a decade working with Microsoft before she found her new position with Google. Kristen will be stepping into an executive role that's highly sought-after by people in her industry. She told the media that she's looking at the job as an opportunity to make a difference and establish influence with her leadership.

Although she said that there has been challenging moments in settling into her role, Kristen also noted that all of the hard work will be worth it if it means she can open new doors for the next generation of leaders. She claimed that being a corporate sponsor and active mentor has always been important to her, and she'll continue to focus strongly on this are when working with Google Cloud. 

The growth of the executive team isn't the only sign that Google is making positive progress this year. The business also recently acquired a number of partners and businesses that will allow it to continue making an impact on the market. It will be exciting to see how Google continues to establish itself as a key player in the enterprise and cloud market as the year progresses. So far, the leadership team in Google Cloud have proven that they're not all smoke and no cigar. Kurian is fully dedicated to his aggressive plan for cloud growth.