CRN breaks down six key Google Cloud executives who left the company in 2026 to join companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and others.
From Google Cloud’s head of partner programs to its head of customer engineering for global security, the $80 billion cloud and AI giant has lost several key executives that partners and customers should know about.
Interestingly, some of Google Cloud’s key partner and AI innovative leaders left for red-hot AI startups OpenAI and Anthropic, while one Google Cloud president rejoined Microsoft.
CRN breaks down six important Google Cloud executives who departed the company in 2026 and where they landed a new executive position.
[Related: Cloud Market Share Q1 2026: AWS, Microsoft, Google Battling In AI Era]
Google Cloud Q1 Earning Success And Current Market Share
Before jumping into the five biggest executive departures at Google Cloud that partners need to know about, here’s a quick overview of the company’s recent financial earnings results.
Google Cloud reported $20 billion in total cloud revenue for the first quarter of 2026, representing an increase of 63 percent year over year.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud company generated $6.6 billion in operating income, up from $2.2 billion a year earlier, marking a 203 percent year-over-year increase.
In terms of worldwide cloud infrastructure services market share, Google Cloud won 14 percent share in first-quarter 2026, according to new data from Synergy Research Group.
The company has been increasing its enterprise cloud market share for years. For example, in first-quarter 2025, Google Cloud owned 12 percent market share, compared with its current 14 percent share.
Google Cloud currently has a record annual run rate of $80 billion.
Colleen Kapase
Former Google Cloud Position: VP Channels, Global Head of Partner Programs
New Job: VP, Strategic Global Partnerships, Ecosystems, OpenAI
Kapase, Google Cloud’s former global head of partner programs, left the company in April to join red-hot AI startup OpenAI.
Kapase was a beloved Google channel leader who was key to the development of Google Cloud’s new flagship partner program: the Google Cloud Partner Network.
She is a longtime channel executive, having worked in top partner and ecosystem roles at Snowflake, VMware and Citrix.
Kapase joined OpenAI in a familiar partner executive position as vice president of strategic global partnerships and ecosystems.
Interstlying, soon after joining OpenAI, her new employer formed a blockbuster partnership with Google competitor AWS.
“OpenAI and AWS are expanding our strategic partnership to bring our frontier models, Codex and Bedrock Managed Agents to AWS,” Kapase said on Linkedin May. “I can’t wait to see our joint ecosystem come alive and what they build next.”
Joe Mellet
Former Google Cloud Position: Head of Customer Engineering, Startup Acquisition
New Job: Head of Applied AI, Americas Startups, U.S., Anthropic
Mellet spent over six years at Google Cloud in various top customer engineering positions.
As head of customer engineering for startup acquisitions in America for Google Cloud, Mellet led an organization of 50 sales engineers with a focus on venture-backed startups that were new to Google Cloud Platform, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Mellet left Google Cloud in April to join red-hot AI startup Anthropic.
He is now head of applied AI for Americas startups at Anthropic, tasked with scaling the company’s applied AI organization.
“Google gave me the best 6.5 years of my career. The people I met, the leadership I learned, and the technology I worked with was everything I hoped for,” he said on LinkedIn in April. “It’s time to get back to early stage building and scaling.”
Mike Farrell
Former Google Cloud Position: Head of Customer Engineering, Global Security
New Job: Director, Corporate Sales Engineering, CrowdStrike
Farrell played a key role inside Google Cloud’s security organization over the past five years as head of customer engineering, global security.
At Google Cloud, he led the Americas cybersecurity engineering team as well as scaling the company’s presales security engineers.
Farrell left Google Cloud in March to join cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike as the company’s new director of corporate sales engineering.
“CrowdStrike’s mission to stop breaches, their relentless focus on innovation and the culture of the company is something I’ve long admired. I’m incredibly excited to lead and coach such a talented team of engineers and managers as we redefine what’s possible in the cybersecurity landscape,” Farrell said in a LinkedIn post last month.
Hayete Gallot
Former Google Cloud Position: President, Customer Experience
New Job: Executive Vice President, Microsoft Security, Microsoft
One of the biggest Google Cloud executive turnarounds in 2026 was the hiring—and the quick departure—of Gallot as president of Google Cloud’s customer experience.
After spending 16 years as a top Microsoft executive, Gallot was hired by Google Cloud in 2025 to lead the company’s multibillion-dollar commercial business—leading all customer-facing teams including global customer engineering, global partner ecosystem and channels, strategic accounts, Google’s innovation centers, and consulting and learning services.
However, after less than one year, she left Google Cloud to rejoin Microsoft in February.
She is now Microsoft’s executive vice president of security.
“As we embark on one of the most significant transformations in our lifetime, realizing the astonishing potential of AI will only succeed if we can secure AI solutions and make them safe,” Gallot said on LinkedIn earlier this year. “I’m honored to join [Microsoft’s] amazing team and bring the next wave of innovation in Security to help customers in this AI era, and help make the world a safer place for all.”
Alvin Lung
Former Google Cloud Position: Head of Partner Engineering, Google Cloud Security, GSI
New Job: Managing Principal, Citreno
Lung was head of partner engineering for Google Cloud Security with a focus on forming new—and scaling—large global partners in the cybersecurity space.
Lung is a longtime cybersecurity expert, having worked at Symantec for over 13 years before joining Google Cloud in 2020.
He departed Google to join Citreno, which specializes in Google security services.
“I am joining forces with [Citreno CEO] Svetla Yankova once again and lead Citreno’s APJ expansion. Citreno represents a gold standard of excellence in delivering Google’s Unified Security offerings,” he said.
Fernando Pereira
Former Google Cloud/Google DeepMind Position: VP, Engineering Fellow
New Job: Chief AI Scientist, Inceptive
Pereira worked at Google for 18-plus years, helping to drive the company’s current AI innovation road map.
His last role as vice president and engineering fellow saw him leading R&D in natural language and understanding and machine learning. At the same time, he worked at Google DeepMind—Google Cloud’s AI research laboratory formed in 2023—as a vice president.
He worked for years to bring AI for language understanding and recommendations to current Google Cloud products.
“What we accomplished, thanks to my many wonderful colleagues along the way, was far beyond what I had hoped when I came to Google in 2008 motivated by the belief that ML was ready to drive advances in language and user understanding,” Pereira said on LinkedIn.
In March, he left Google Cloud and DeepMind to become chief AI scientist for biological software firm Inceptive.
“Joining Inceptive as their Chief AI Scientist, I will build on what I learned over the last two decades to advance biological foundation models that enable faster biomedical discovery,” he said.
