India born Google’s chief business officer Nikesh Arora, has stepped down from the post to join Japan’s SoftBank. Nikesh was the highest paid executive with a $ 50 million, i.e. almost 300-crore annual salary. In his new role he is likely to run Sprint, America’s No. 3 telecom player that Softbank recently acquired. Nikesh thanked Google for his phenomenal 10-year stint in the company.
 
Nikesh was born in Ghaziabad, Nikesh Arora completed his schooling from The Air Force School in Delhi. He graduated as an Electronic Engineer from IIT BHU in 1989. He did his management degree from Northeastern University, Boston, US and Masters in Finance from Boston.
 
Google’s chief executive officer Larry Page, in his Blog described him as a “tremendous leader, adviser and mentor to many Googlers, including me”. He also said that Nikesh will be replaced for now by Omid Kordestani, Google’s business founder who led the sales teams for many years.
 
Arora, who was until recently also a director at Bharti Airtel, joined Google in 2004, and rose rapidly to head the company’s revenue and customer operations, and marketing and partnerships as chief business officer.
 
Under his leadership, Google’s profit in the April-June quarter rose 6% year-on-year to $3.42 billion, and revenue zoomed 22% at $16.0 billion.