Jerry Dischler, the executive in charge of Google Ads, has stepped down after working for Google for more than 15 years.
Google would not say whether Deischler would stay with the company, only that he would accept a “new challenge.” Google confirmed to Search Engine Land that the decision is not related to the recent federal antitrust trial.
Meet the new boss. Vidya Srinivasan, who previously led product and engineering for ads, will take over leading the ad team. She reports to Google’s senior vice president, Prabhakar Raghavan.
Srinivasan, who joined Google from Amazon four years ago, oversees technology teams across the advertising product portfolio. This includes roles related to search and shopping ads, Google Analytics, ad measurement tools, and AI-powered campaign experiences. During his tenure, he led the launch of Performance Max and Demand Gen, the overhaul of Google Analytics, and the implementation of pixel-less measurement for YouTube advertising.
Most recently, she has been at the forefront of Google’s efforts to monetize new Generative AI experiences in Search (SGE) and played a key role in developing tools for advertisers to use Generative AI capabilities for campaign and asset creation Has played. Beyond her technical contributions, Srinivasan sponsors Google’s women in advertising community.
big ahead, Shashi Thakur, who has worked for Google for 17 years, will take over from Srinivasan and report directly to him. Shashi made significant contributions to the development of core Google products such as Search, Discover, and Shopping. His extensive tenure includes recent work on long-term strategy within Prabhakar’s knowledge and information organization.
Focusing on Google Search for over 13 years, Shashi was particularly involved in evolving the search experience on mobile devices. He also led the engineering and product teams that introduced the Google Knowledge Graph to enhance the search experience.
Shashi also served as general manager for consumer shopping, overseeing the development of the shopping experience on Search. In this role, he focused on creating more inspiring experiences through conversational AI and AR/3D technology.
Dischler’s leadership. During his tenure in advertising, Deischler played a key role in shaping the future of advertising for Google and the overall industry. He contributed to Google’s transition from desktop to mobile, established a pioneering stance on user privacy, and pioneered advanced advertising technologies, including early applications of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) at large scale. .
Antitrust Test Comments. During the federal antitrust trial, Deischler testified that Google made changes to the auction used to sell search ads, increasing the cost of ads and reserve pricing by up to 5% for the average advertiser. He claimed that for some queries, the tech giant would have increased the prices even by 10%. He said that for some queries, the tech giant may have even raised prices by 10% — but Google “does not tell advertisers about pricing changes.”
Following Dischler’s comments, a Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land:
- “The cost of search ads is the result of a real-time auction where advertisers never pay more than their maximum bid. We’re constantly making improvements to make ads better for both advertisers and users.”
- “Our quality improvements help eliminate irrelevant ads, improve relevance, drive greater advertiser value, and deliver a higher quality user experience.”
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Detailed analysis. For more on Deischler’s testimony, read our blog on federal antitrust trials.
