For instance, Philipp Schindler, Google's VP of global sales and operations, will in many ways be replacing departed chief business officer Omid Kordestani, which The Information's Amir Efrati reported Sunday evening.
Although we understand that Schindler won't actually be getting the CBO title, he'll now be an SVP on the management team of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and will have a lot of the responsibilities that a chief business officer would have.
There is no one person holding the CBO role, at least for now, and Schindler will be joined on Pichai's new management by Daniel Alegre, who runs global partnerships, and Lorraine Twohill, who runs marketing.
All three execs had been pinned as internal candidates gunning for the chief business officer job after Kordestani "temporarily" inherited the position when Nikesh Arora left the company last summer.
Schindler was almost made CBO last year
A former Google exec recently told us that Arora actually wanted Schindler to be his replacement, but that Page tapped Kordestani instead.
Although Kordestani's appointment was billed as a short-term gig at first, Google announced last fall that he would be staying in his role on a more permanent basis.
However, with the Alphabet reorg, he stepped down to follow Larry Page to Alphabet. Kordestani has long been one of Page's most trusted confidants, and he will continue to act as an advisor to Alphabet.
"I decided that it was time to eliminate my own job" and step aside "so that the excellent leaders on my management team can sit on Sundar Pichai's management team," Koredestani posted on Google+ when he decided to leave Google.
Schindler, a ten-year Google vet, will now have "one of the most lucrative non-CEO jobs in the Internet industry, worth tens of millions of dollars a year, depending on share price performance," as Efrati puts it.
Before getting this title upgrade, he was already running the operations teams across all of Google's advertising and enterprise (Google for Work) products. Before joining Google in 2005, Philipp was AOL Germany's SVP, in charge of its marketing and sales.
Efrati's sources describe Schindler as "hyper-logical" and "softer-edged" than Arora.
But the former exec we spoke with says that he sometimes came across as a "control freak who thinks that he isn't one." For example, he might intend to give one of his reports more autonomy on a project, but then end up wanting to check every part of it.
Schindler has pushed to simplify Google's advertising products and integrate as much automation as possible, Efrati reports, which will likely still be his position as he gains more control on the company's direction.