Kent Walker (born 1961)[1] is an American legal executive who has served as President of Global Affairs and Chief legal officer of 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 edit

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

Career edit

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.[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 accuses Google of illegally abusing its monopoly power as the largest online search tool.

Board service edit

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]

Personal life edit

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 edit

  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).

External links edit