Google ends marathon search for new financial chief

I'm feeling lucky

Google has finally found a new chief financial officer, ending a nearly year-long search to replace its current CFO, George Reyes.

The ad broker tapped telecommunications executive Patrick Pichette. He'll start punching the clock at Google on August 1 and take the CFO chair August 12.

Pichette was previously the president of operations at Canada's largest phone carrier, BCE Inc. Not a bad background if you wanted to — say — get into the mobile phone business. Pichette also wore a CFO hat at the teleco Call-Net Enterprises in the 1990s.

“Google is a great company with a phenomenal brand and an outstanding management team,” said Pichette in a statement. “As an avid user of Google products, I’ve admired the company for many years and am excited about working with my new colleagues in Mountain View and around the world.”

Google's original plan set in August 2007 was to have Reyes step out by the end of that year.

Little birds have whispered in our ear that the CFO candidates all found Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin unbearable and kept turning the job down. That may explain why one of the biggest names in technology needed a good ten months to find a new CFO. ®