Patrick Pichette

Patrick Pichette
CQ
Pichette in 2022
Born1962 (age 61–62)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Education
Occupations
Board member of
AwardsNational Order of Québec
Websitewww.inovia.vc/people/patrick-pichette

Patrick Pichette CQ (born 1962) is a Canadian business executive and venture capitalist who was the senior vice president and the chief financial officer of Google from 2008 until 2015.[1] He then became a venture capital fund manager, and is a director for several companies and a foundation.[2]

Early life and education

Pichette was born in 1962 and raised in Montreal, Quebec.[3][4] He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Université du Québec à Montréal (1987) and a Master of Arts degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Pembroke College of the University of Oxford.[1] He received a Rhodes Scholarship.[5]

Career

Pichette began his career in 1989 as an associate at McKinsey & Company in Toronto. In 1994, he left to become vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Toronto-based Call-Net Enterprises, but rejoined McKinsey in 1996 after Call-Net's acquisition by Rogers Communications. He joined BCE Inc. in 2001 as an executive vice president. From 2002 to 2003, he had a brief stint as Bell Canada's CFO, before transitioning to the role of president of operations which he held from 2004 to 2008.[5]

He was senior vice president and CFO of Google Inc. from 2008 until 2015.[1]

In April 2011, it was announced that Pichette would also be taking over human resources responsibilities within Google from vice president Laszlo Bock,[6] and BizOps from Shona Brown.[7]

In 2013, Pichette accepted a position on the board of directors for Bombardier Inc., a position he held until 2017.[8][9]

In March 2015, he announced he would retire to travel the world.[10][11] He was succeeded as CFO by Ruth Porat.

In June 2015, he received the National Order of Québec.[12]

In April 2018, he joined Inovia Capital, a venture capital firm with offices in Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco and London.[3][13][14] After becoming a general partner at Inovia Capital, Pichette is splitting his time between the firm's offices in London,[2] Canada and Silicon Valley.

In 2019, Pichette became a lead founding member of UK's Creative Destruction Lab at Oxford.[15]

In 2021, Pichette was appointed as a board member of indoor cycling app company Zwift.[16]

Pichette was appointed independent board chair of Twitter, Inc. on June 2, 2020.[17] He served as lead independent director from 2018–2022. After Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, Musk fired the entire board of directors, including Pichette, leaving Musk as the sole board member.[18]

Pichette serves on the Board of Directors as chair of the board at Montreal-based company Lightspeed. He joined in October 2018 and took the position of Lead Independent Chair in February 2022.[19] He served chair of the board of directors at the Trudeau Foundation from November 2018 until March 2021.[20] Pichette is a board advisor to the start-up Arctoris.[21]

Personal life

Pichette lives in London, and is married to Tamar Pichette,[3] with whom he has three children.[22]

He and his wife Tamar are involved in philanthropic projects including a conservation and research project with Nature Conservancy of Canada in protecting Kenauk, a 65,000 acre territory between Montreal and Ottawa.[23][24][25] They are active partners in a project with Himalayan Cataract Project, building an eye hospital in Ethiopia.

References

  1. ^ a b c "Bell Canada Executive Patrick Pichette to Join Google Executive Team". Google.
  2. ^ a b "Former Google CFO Patrick Pichette just joined the world of venture capital", Connie Loizos, April 11, 2018, TechCrunch
  3. ^ a b c "Former Google CFO Patrick Pichette's vacation is over: He's becoming a VC". April 11, 2018. Archived from the original on April 12, 2018.
  4. ^ Pichette, Patrick (September 28, 2022). "The Times They Are A-Changin'". Inovia. Archived from the original on November 27, 2022.
  5. ^ a b Kennedy, David (March 11, 2015). "Google's Canadian CFO to embark on the adventures of early retirement". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on September 22, 2023.
  6. ^ "Google CFO to take on HR duties". HR Grapevine. April 14, 2011. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  7. ^ Liz Gannes (April 11, 2011). "More Google Management Changes: CFO Patrick Pichette Adds BizOps and HR to His Duties". All Things D. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  8. ^ Schwartz, Claire Brownell (December 14, 2016). "Money began to rain on Trudeau Foundation once Justin took over Liberals, analysis shows". National Post. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  9. ^ "Bombardier recrute Patrick Pichette, de Google". TVA Nouvelles. October 31, 2013. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  10. ^ Guyunn, Jessica (March 10, 2015). "Google CFO Patrick Pichette to retire". USA Today. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
  11. ^ Patrick Pichette (March 10, 2015). "Blog posting". Google Plus. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  12. ^ "Patrick Pichette - National Order of Quebec (In French)". ordre-national.gouv.qc.ca. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  13. ^ "INovia Sngas CFOs from Google and Blackberry to Lead Growth Fund", The Globe and Mail, April 11, 2018
  14. ^ "Top Google / RIM Executives Join Canada's iNovia Capital To Transform Growth Investing"Top Google", iNovia Capital
  15. ^ "Former Google CFO to coach British spinouts in becoming the next tech winners". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on November 30, 2022.
  16. ^ "Zwift Adds Twitter's Pichette, Lululemon's Burgoyne to Board".
  17. ^ "Inline XBRL Viewer".
  18. ^ "Quebecer among Twitter board members fired after Elon Musk takeover". CTV News. October 31, 2022. Archived from the original on November 15, 2022.
  19. ^ Patrick Pichette: Lead Independent Director
  20. ^ Patrick Pichette
  21. ^ "About Us". Arctoris. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  22. ^ Moore, Karl (September 5, 2016). "Patrick Pichette: 'When work starts feeling too comfortable, fire yourself'". The Globe and Mail.
  23. ^ Coulton, Marisa (February 12, 2023). "'More stuff means less happiness': Twitter's former board chair Patrick Pichette strives for a simpler life". Financial Post – via Yahoo! Finance.
  24. ^ "Luxury lodge rental in Outaouais, Quebec - Kenauk Nature". Luxury lodge rental in Outaouais, Quebec - Kenauk Nature. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  25. ^ "Wilderness Research". Kenauk Institute. Retrieved July 8, 2021.