Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt will step down from the board of Alphabet, Google’s holding company, in June, Alphabet announced Tuesday afternoon. Diane Greene, who until recently led Google’s cloud business, will also depart from the board.
Alphabet announced that one of those two board seats will be filled by Robin L. Washington, who has been the chief financial officer of biotech company Gilead Sciences for the past 11 years. Williams also serves on the board of Honeywell, and has in the past had executive roles at Hyperion and PeopleSoft.
Schmidt’s departure is in many ways the end of an era for Google. Schmidt joined the company in 2001 as its CEO and remained in that role until 2011. From 2011 until 2017, he had been the executive chairman of Google and Alphabet, respectively.
Schmidt’s role in the early days of the company has long been described as the one of the adult in the room, who helped its co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page turn a scrappy startup into a massive technology giant.
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“Eric has made an extraordinary contribution to Google and Alphabet as CEO, chairman, and board member. We are extremely grateful for his guidance and leadership over many years,” said Alphabet board chairman John Hennessy in a statement Tuesday.