Matt Brittin to step down as president of Google EMEA

Brittin joined Google as Head of UK and Ireland operations in 2007, before being promoted to Vice President of Northern and Central Europe, and then EMEA President in 2014.

He will remain with Google as it seeks a successor before taking ‘a mini gap year’ to spend more time with his family and later looking to apply what he has learned about technology and leadership in different ways.

“When I joined Google in January 2007, Larry Page advised me to “put the best people you can on important work, and get out of the way”. It’s been the privilege of my life to try to honour this - working with brilliant teams to help build tech that makes the world better.”

Brittin revealed his departure in a LinkedIn post this week. He said that EMEA represents around one-third of Google’s overall revenue and that it is a “pivotal moment” to be passing the baton. “We’re only just starting to glimpse the transformative benefit that AI will have on billions of lives - and people in our part of the world are showing the way. Google DeepMind, led from London, have pioneered breakthroughs like Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold, accelerating research in nearly every field of science.”

Before Google, Brittin worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Co and as Commercial Director for Trinity Mirror, later called Reach PLC.