From PaidContent:
Following the layoffs of many of its sales and marketing execs, and the departure of US ad sales chief Tim Armstrong, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is looking to rebuild that area. On Thursday, the company announced that Nikesh Arora is moving from his post as president of international operations to become president of global sales operations and business development. He replaces Omid Kordestani, who moves into an advisory position. Arora will manage all of Google’s revenue and customer operations, as well as its marketing and partnerships. He has been focused on building the European business over the past four-and-a-half-years.
The changes come during Google’s first truly challenging period since establishing its online ad dominance. Last month, the company said it would impose a third round of cuts in the sales and marketing unit, laying off an additional 200. Still, Google being Google means that times are not quite as tough as they are for everyone else: the company just beat analysts’ estimates and posted 10 percent revenue gains. The move also follows the replacement of Armstrong as VP-Americas Operations by European Google exec Dennis Woodside.
This is an end of an important era at google. Omid is generally credited with google’s keyword auction business model for search advertising which is a variation of the model originally invented by overture (now part of yahoo). So he made a real difference at google.