Google Reorg Gives Top Exec Portfolio to Jump-Start Shopping

Until a few weeks ago, when Google staffers wanted to test new shopping features for Google’s search home page, the need to get approval from Google’s search team sometimes held things up, former employees say. But a management shake-up earlier this month, giving a key executive responsibility for search and e-commerce, could smooth out those issues. And that could jump-start Google’s efforts to take on Amazon.com.

Prabhakar Raghavan, who had been heading product development for Google’s $130 billion a year ad business as well as shopping and payments, now also leads its search business. With a central leader, balancing demands from both teams may become easier, the employees said. Google declined our request for comment. 

Today we are updating our Google org chart to reflect the changes. We’re highlighting the 14 leaders in Raghavan’s new 20,000-person mega-organization, as well as showing who now reports to Google’s former head of search, Ben Gomes. We’ve also added the eight executives reporting to Tom Oliveri, who leads Pichai’s “CEO Team.”