Alphabet taps Eli Lilly's Anat Ashkenazi as new CFO
Ashkenazi will replace Ruth Porat, who will become president and chief investment officer of the company after nearly a decade as chief financial officer
Eli Lilly Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi will become Alphabet's new CFO effective July 31, Google's parent company announced Tuesday, almost a year after Alphabet first announced that current CFO Ruth Porat would move into a new role as president and chief investment officer.
Ashkenazi had a 23-year career at Eli Lilly, which in a separate release confirmed her departure.
"We're very pleased to have found such a strong CFO, with a track record of strategic focus on long-term investment to fuel innovation and growth," Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a release.
Ashkenazi joined Eli Lilly in 2001 and has been CFO since 2021. She will continue to serve on the pharmaceutical company's executive committee until her departure. She previously served as CFO for several of the company's global business areas, helping manage the revenue windfall from Eli Lilly's weight loss and diabetes drugs.
Porat had a nearly three-decade career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, culminating as its CFO, before joining Google in 2015. She helped Google grow into one of the most valuable companies in the world, including while the company has recently contended with threats ranging from the artificial intelligence race to antitrust investigations.
The leadership shuffle has long been in the works. Google first announced in 2023 that Porat would step down and has since been mounting a search process.
Google's finance unit has been grappling with other changes in recent months as well. Porat announced earlier this year that Google was restructuring its finance unit as the company pushed to favor investments in AI, CNBC previously reported, with layoffs and relocations that would impact teams worldwide.
Other top executives at the firm include Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler, Head of Google Search Prabhakar Raghavan and Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian.
Google's "old guard" has experienced shifts beyond just Porat, CNBC has previously detailed. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, former Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl and widely respected AI authority Geoffrey Hinton are among those who have departed or announced their departure since 2023.
Google shares were slightly up in premarket trading Tuesday.
Disclosure: Anat Ashkenazi is a member of CNBC's CFO Council.
— CNBC's Jenn Elias and Annika Kim Constantino contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on: CNBC - Author:Rohan Goswami
