K. Guru Gowrappan is a business executive and senior advisor to

Apollo Global Management Apollo Global Management, Inc. is an American global private-equity firm. It provides investment management and invests in credit, private equity, and real assets. As of March 31, 2022, the company had $512 billion of assets under management, ...

. He is the former

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

and previously held leadership positions with Alibaba Group,

Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...

Overture Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") in music was originally the instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overt ...

, and

Quixey Quixey was a company located in Mountain View, California. Quixey search, which it called "functional", allowed apps to be searched for by the actions the app can perform instead of requiring the user to know the name of the app. In 2015, Quixey r ...

Early life and education

K. Guru Gowrappan was born in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. He earned a degree in

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

from

Madras University The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

and his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. He completed the business bridge program at

Tuck School of Business The Tuck School of Business (also known as Tuck, and formally known as the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance) is the graduate business school of Dartmouth College, a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Founded in ...

, the graduate

business school A business school is a university-level institution that confers degrees in business administration or management. A business school may also be referred to as school of management, management school, school of business administration, o ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

Career

Gowrappan served as global

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Alibaba Group (2015-2018), in charge of international expansion for consumer and enterprise products. He was

chief operations officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the " C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...

of Zynga, where he led growth and emerging initiatives, mergers and acquisitions integration, including the purchase of Newtoy, which brought

Words With Friends ''Words with Friends'' is a multiplayer word game developed by Zynga with Friends, Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game ''Scrabble''. The rules of the two games are simila ...

to Zynga, and worked with top executives during Zynga's 2011

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. Gowrappan also had leadership and executive roles in strategy and business operations at

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

, and led product growth at

(as COO). Verizon hired Gowrappan in April 2018 as president and

COO COO or coo may refer to: Business * Certificate of origin, used in international trade * Chief operating officer or chief operations officer, high-ranking corporate official * Concept of operations, used in Systems Engineering Management Process ...

of its Oath division (later renamed Verizon Media; as of September 1, 2021, a standalone company named Yahoo). His duties included consumer, revenue operations, and business-to-business marketing. He assumed the role of CEO of Verizon Media in October 2018, succeeding

Tim Armstrong Timothy Ross Armstrong (born November 25, 1965) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and producer. Known for his distinctive voice, he is the singer/guitarist for the punk rock band Rancid and hip hop/punk rock supergroup Transplants. ...

, the former AOL CEO who oversaw Verizon's consolidation of AOL and Yahoo. As part of his plan as CEO of Verizon Media, whose brands include Yahoo and AOL, Gowrappan said the unit would focus on mobile and video products, and revenue from its advertising platforms. Gowrappan's efforts include initiatives to introduce online shopping and transactions into Verizon Media's digital offerings. Gowrappan sought to differentiate Verizon Media from other businesses by focusing on premium content by publishers and premium memberships. Additionally, Gowrappan stopped efforts to sell brands within Verizon Media and shuttered flagging services. In early 2019, Verizon announced it would lay off 7% of the media group staff following a monthslong review of the business by Gowrappan. ''Variety'' attributed Gowrappan with the introduction of Verizon Media Immersive, an advertising and content extended reality platform, and a deal with the

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

and

Yahoo Sports Yahoo! Sports is a sports news website launched by Yahoo! on December 8, 1997. It receives a majority of its information from STATS, Inc. It employs numerous writers, and has team pages for teams in almost every North American major sport. Bef ...

with live VR experiences by

RYOT Ryot (alternatives: raiyat, rait or ravat) was a general economic term used throughout India for peasant cultivators but with variations in different provinces. While zamindars were landlords, raiyats were tenants and cultivators, and served as hi ...

. Gowrappan leads Mind Together, a group addressing workplace culture around mental health. In May 2021,

agreed to acquire 90% of

Verizon Media Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

from

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

for $5 billion. The sale closed on September 1, 2021, with Gowrappan named the CEO of

. Gowrappan led the new company in the weeks following the merger until September 27, 2021, when he was succeeded by

Jim Lanzone James Lanzone (born January 20, 1971) is an American businessman and the CEO of Yahoo Inc. Previously, he was CEO of Tinder. He is also the former president and CEO of CBS Interactive, a top 10 Internet property that operated key websites includi ...

. Gowrappan was named senior advisor to

. As of 2021, Gowrappan serves on the board of directors of

BNY Mellon The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, commonly known as BNY Mellon, is an American investment banking services holding company headquartered in New York City. BNY Mellon was formed from the merger of The Bank of New York and the Mellon Finan ...

and Tech:NYC. He has served on the board of directors for One97 Communications Ltd, the parent of

Paytm Paytm (acronym for "pay through mobile") is an Indian digital payments and financial services company, based in Noida. It was founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma under One97 Communications. The company offers mobile payment services to co ...

, and is an

angel investor An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...

and advisor to Indian start-ups.

References

External links

Official biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gowrappan, Guru Business executives Verizon Communications people Indian business executives Alibaba Group people University of Southern California alumni University of Madras alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people