Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has appointed Anat Ashkenazi as its new Chief Financial Officer (CFO), following an extensive search to find a successor to Ruth Porat. Ashkenazi, who has been serving as the CFO of Eli Lilly since 2021, joins Alphabet at a time when the company is heavily investing in artificial intelligence while implementing cost-cutting measures in other areas of its operations.
Last July, Alphabet announced that Porat would transition into a new role as the president and chief investment officer, but would continue as CFO until a successor was found. Ashkenazi’s position will take effect on July 31. Having started at Eli Lilly in 2001, she has also held the roles of CFO and controller of the company’s Lilly Research Laboratories division. Ashkenazi will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area and will report directly to Chief Executive Sundar Pichai.
Pichai expressed enthusiasm about Ashkenazi’s hiring, emphasizing the potential for innovation and growth in the AI era. He stated, “The AI era is giving us an incredible opportunity to innovate at scale across our core products, and to create entirely new products and experiences for our users and customers. I look forward to working with Anat as we invest responsibly to support our next wave of growth.”
Alphabet has encountered challenges in recent months with the deployment of AI tools and features, particularly in search queries where users reported receiving strange and incorrect answers. Despite these setbacks, the company’s capital expenditures for the first quarter surged by 91% to $12 billion compared to the same period the previous year. Profit also increased by 57% to $23.7 billion. In April, Alphabet announced its first-ever cash dividend.
Similar to other major tech companies, Alphabet has focused on cost reduction and efficiency measures after a hiring surge during the pandemic. The company implemented its largest-ever round of layoffs, cutting 6% of its workforce (around 12,000 jobs) in 2020. Ongoing smaller cuts have also been made across the company. However, despite these efforts, Alphabet is investing heavily in AI advancements. It recently committed $2 billion to establish its first data center in Malaysia and has started producing more of its own semiconductors to reduce reliance on external chip vendors.
Ashkenazi’s tenure as CFO of Eli Lilly has been marked by strong sales, particularly driven by the company’s popular weight-loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound. In May, Eli Lilly announced plans to invest $5.3 billion in expanding production capacity for these highly sought-after drugs, representing the largest manufacturing investment in the company’s history. Analysts covering Eli Lilly have commended Ashkenazi for her focus on R&D spending and effectively managing investors’ expectations.
At Alphabet, Ashkenazi is expected to face similar challenges in capital allocation across various projects and business lines. In addition to its Google services, Alphabet operates diverse ventures, including self-driving cars and life sciences. Analysts have emphasized the CFO’s role in determining which R&D projects to prioritize and allocate resources to.
During her nine-year tenure as CFO of Alphabet, Ruth Porat enhanced the company’s financial discipline and transparency to investors. She oversaw a reorganization that established the current corporate structure, separating search and advertising divisions from other ambitious projects, referred to as “moonshots.” The company also started conducting regular briefings with analysts, a significant change at that time.
Eli Lilly has initiated a search for a new CFO, considering both internal and external candidates.