A giant of Wall Street is moving to a giant of Silicon Valley.
Google announced Tuesday that it has hired Ruth Porat, the former CFO of Morgan Stanley who has been dubbed "the most powerful woman on Wall Street," to take over as its new CFO.
Porat has been described as a "tireless worker" who was making work phone calls while delivering her first son, according to a profile in The New York Times.
Porat's hire comes two weeks after Google's previous CFO Patrick Pichette announced his decision to retire from the role in a candid memo about work/life balance.
"Then she asked the killer question," Pichette wrote in his memo, remembering a conversation with his wife about having to go back to work rather than keep traveling with her around the world. "So when is it going to be time? Our time? My time? The questions just hung there in the cold morning African air."
Heading back to California and joining @google as the new CFO beginning in May 2015. Great team of amazing, hard-working people.— Ruth Porat (@Ruth_Porat) March 24, 2015
(The account that appeared to be Porat's has since either been deleted or suspended).
As it so happens, Porat grew up in the Silicon Valley area and has a well-known close relationship with Mary Meeker, the influential venture capitalist from Kleiner Perkins.
“We’re tremendously fortunate to have found such a creative, experienced and operationally strong executive,” Larry Page, cofounder and CEO of Google, said in a statement Tuesday. “I look forward to learning from Ruth as we continue to innovate in our core--from search and ads, to Android, Chrome and YouTube--as well as invest in a thoughtful, disciplined way in our next generation of big bets."