Wikipedia

Kent Walker

Kent Walker (born 1961)[1] is an American legal executive who has served as President of Global Affairs and chief legal officer of Google & Alphabet since 2021.[2]

Kent Walker
Personal details
Born1961 (age 62–63)
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
SpouseDiana Walsh
EducationHarvard University (BA)
Stanford University (JD)

Early life and education

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Walker was born in Palo Alto.[1] He graduated from Harvard College in 1983[1] and received his JD from Stanford Law School.[3]

Career

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In 1990, Walker began his legal career in San Francisco at Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Robertson & Falk, now Arnold & Porter, and worked as a litigator specializing in government and public law issues. He then served 5 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the United States Department of Justice.[1]

Walker worked at various technology companies, starting in 1995 with Airtouch Communications. From 1997 to 2001[1] he was deputy general counsel at Netscape,[4] from 2001 until 2004 he worked for Liberate Technologies, and from 2003 until 2006[1] he was deputy general counsel at eBay.[5]

Since 2006,[1] Walker has advised Alphabet's board and management on legal and policy issues,[5] its work with governments around the world,[6] its policies for content on its various services,[7] and its philanthropic efforts.[8] Since 2021, he has been President of Global Affairs and chief legal officer at Alphabet.[2] On September 12, 2023 Walker was followed by a man dressed up as Mr. Monopoly, as he went to attend Google's antitrust trial United States v. Google LLC (2023) at federal court in Washington, D.C.[9] in which the DOJ accused Google of illegally abusing its monopoly power as the largest online search tool.

Board service

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As of 2018, he served on the Harvard Board of Overseers[10] and was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[11] In 2015 he was on the HeartFlow Board of Directors,[12] and advised the Mercy Corps Social Ventures Fund.[13]

Controversy

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In 2008, Walker introduced a "communication with care" policy at Google, which resulted in the company adopting a policy of automatic deletion of employee chat logs, a practice that became a source of legal controversy for the company during later federal antitrust lawsuits.[14][15]

Personal life

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As of 2010, Walker was married to Diana Walsh, a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter, and they had three children.[1] As of 2022, his base salary at Google was $1,000,000, with a maximum of a $2,000,000 annual bonus, one tranche of performance stock units of $5,000,000, and one tranche of restricted stock units worth $18,000,000.[2]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Martin Kuz (2010-10-08). "Googling Kent Walker - Super Lawyers California". Super Lawyers. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
  2. ^ a b c "United States Securities And Exchange Commission Form 8-K. Alphabet Inc". United States Securities And Exchange Commission. Washington, DC. 28 December 2021. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  3. ^ Jackson, Eric. "Why Does Google Crave Elites for Their Management Team While Apple Eschews Them?". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  4. ^ Jamie Zawinski (1998). "really bad attitude". www.jwz.org. Retrieved 2020-05-18.
  5. ^ a b "Organizing the World's Information at Google Legal: Kent Walker, Vice President & General Counsel - Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)". www.acc.com. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  6. ^ "Google has proposed changes in laws for requesting data". Recode. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  7. ^ "Google rolls out new policies for U.S. election ads – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  8. ^ "Google.org launches $5 million innovation fund to counter 'hate and extremism'". VentureBeat. 2017-09-20. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  9. ^ Harshawn Ratanpal (2023-10-05). "Google ramped up federal lobbying ahead of DOJ antitrust showdown". Open Secrets. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
  10. ^ "Kent Walker. Leadership Council on Legal Diversity". www.lcldnet.org. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  11. ^ "Membership Roster". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  12. ^ "Kent Walker Joins HeartFlow Board of Directors". Retrieved 2018-06-01.
  13. ^ "Mercy Corps' Social Venture Fund Overview" (PDF).
  14. ^ Barrabi, Thomas (2023-10-30). "Google CEO Sundar Pichai grilled over company's deleted chat logs at antitrust trial". New York Post. Archived from the original on 2024-05-02. Retrieved 2024-08-28.
  15. ^ Ostwal, Trishla (2024-08-27). "DOJ Claims Google 'Destroyed' Evidence Before Antitrust Trial". Adweek. Archived from the original on 2024-08-28. Retrieved 2024-08-28.
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