Google parent Alphabet said on Wednesday it had poached Anat Ashkenazi from pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to become its next chief financial officer.
Ashkenazi, 51, will take over the key role on July 31, succeeding Alphabet’s longtime CFO Ruth Porat.
The tech giant announced about a year ago that Porat, 66, would take on a new role as the company’s president and chief investment officer.
“We are thrilled to have found such a talented CFO with a proven track record of strategic focus on long-term investments that drive innovation and growth,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement.
In a filing with the SEC, Google said Ashkenazi joined Eli Lilly in 2001 and had a “diverse career over 23 years in finance, strategy and operations.”
Eli Lilly confirmed her departure and announced it was conducting an internal and external search for her replacement.
Porat will remain as Google’s CFO until the company’s second-quarter earnings report in July.
Google shares rose less than 1% in premarket trading.
“Google’s growth and evolution over the past 25 years has been an incredible story, helping billions of people and millions of businesses around the world,” Ashkenazi said in a statement.
“The opportunity to make an impact today has never been greater, and I am honored to invest in the company’s future alongside Sander and his leadership team at such an exciting time.”
Ashkenazi takes over as CEO at a critical time for Google, which is navigating a tumultuous rollout of its AI-powered search engine as it struggles to catch up with rivals such as Microsoft-backed OpenAI.
Google said it was “taking rapid action” to fix strange behavior in its AI Overview feature that advised users against eating stones or putting glue on their pizza.
The tech giant has been cutting jobs this year, including small layoffs and cutting at least 100 jobs in its cloud division earlier this week, as Google seeks to reduce costs and free up more resources for AI.
The company also faces a series of legal challenges, including a landmark antitrust lawsuit by the Department of Justice targeting its online search business and digital advertising division.
A federal court is due to rule later this year on whether Google has a monopoly on online search.
Meanwhile, Google confirmed that its chief privacy officer, Keith Enright, will leave the company this fall.
