Thomas Kurian, Kerala-Born Executive Behind Google Cloud's Rapid Growth

Thomas Kurian's changes have given momentum to Google Cloud and prompted speculation that he could one day succeed chief executive Sundar Pichai as Google's CEO.

Google Cloud employees were baffled when they learned that their next boss would be Thomas Kurian, an executive who struggled to shepherd Silicon Valley mainstay Oracle Corp. into the promised land of internet computing. It was November 2018 and the cloud division's then-chief Diane Greene and Mr Kurian held a question-and-answer session with staff who worried about his impending leadership. "A lot of people have concerns about the fact that you came from Oracle, which is a very different culture," one person said to Mr Kurian. "So how are you going to preserve the culture at Google Cloud?" At a previous meeting that month, an employee described the hire as alarming and sought reassurances from Greene that Mr Kurian was up for the job. More than two years later, no one is befuddled by Mr Kurian's appointment. Under his supervision, Google Cloud's revenue has more than doubled and is growing at a quicker pace than that of its parent company, Alphabet Inc. During the Covid-19 pandemic that caused Google to pause most hiring, Mr Kurian's division snapped up new employees. While other company divisions have fought for internal resources or been shuttered, the cloud unit continues to receive a constant rush of investment. His workforce is now 37,000 people strong, from 25,000 when he took the reins, making Mr Kurian one of the most important executives at Google. Alphabet will give investors an update on Mr Kurian's progress in expanding Google Cloud's business when it reports earnings on July 27. Analysts estimate that the unit's revenue grew about 45% to $4.35 billion in the second quarter.