Omid R. Kordestani ( fa, امید کردستانی; born 1963) is an Iranian-American businessman who was the

Executive Chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

from October 2015 to June 2020 and a board member of the company until October 2022. He was a

Senior Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on t ...

, the Chief Business Officer, and most recently a special advisor to the chief executive officer and founders at

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

from July 2014 to October 2015 and was a director of

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public limited company, plc () is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Telephone company, telecommunications company. Its registered office and Headquarters, global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It ...

from March 2013 to October 2014. Kordestani had also previously been at Google from May 1999 to April 2009, reaching the position of Senior Vice President for Worldwide Sales and Field Operations.

Early life and education

Omid Kordestani was born in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

, Iran and he attended Andisheh Don Bosco School, an Italian Catholic school in Tehran that emphasized education and language skills. He moved to

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popul ...

after the death of his father in 1976. In 1980, Kordestani graduated from

Buchser High School Emil R. Buchser High School was a public high school in Santa Clara, California. It graduated its first class in 1960 and changed its name in 1981 to, Santa Clara High School (Santa Clara, California), Santa Clara High School, which was around many ...

in Santa Clara, California. He later received an electrical engineering degree from

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...

and went to work for

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

as an engineer. Several years later in order to pursue a business degree, he entered

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business (also known as Stanford GSB) is the graduate business school of Stanford University, a private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective business schoo ...

and earned his

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

in 1991.

Career

Kordestani has more than a dozen years of high-technology consumer and enterprise experience, including key positions at Internet pioneer

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was onc ...

Communications. He was also vice president of Business Development and Sales and grew

's website revenue from an annual run-rate of $88 million to more than $200 million in 18 months. He started his career at Netscape as director of OEM Sales, and during his four-year career at that company, he was responsible for establishing major customer relationships with

Citibank Citibank, N. A. (N. A. stands for " National Association") is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, and later became First National City ...

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application Tu ...

Travelocity Travelocity.com is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group. It has 12.4 million monthly unique visitors, making it the third most popular website owned by Expedia Group, after Expedia.com and Hotels.com. One of the pioneers of web-based di ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

, @Home,

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...

, and

Excite Excitation, excite, exciting, or excitement may refer to: * Excitation (magnetic), provided with an electrical generator or alternator * Excite Ballpark, located in San Jose, California * Excite (web portal), web portal owned by IAC * Electron ex ...

. Prior to Netscape, Kordestani held positions in marketing, product management, and business development at The 3DO Company, Go Corporation, and Hewlett-Packard. He joined Google in May 1999, leading the development and implementation of the company's initial business model and was Google's senior vice president of worldwide sales and field operations until April 16, 2009. Kordestani played a part in Google's worldwide revenue generation efforts as well as the day-to-day operations of the company's sales organization. On July 18, 2014, Kordestani came back to Google to fill the vacancy of Chief Business Officer at Google after

Nikesh Arora Nikesh Arora (born February 9, 1968) is an Indian-American business executive. Arora was formerly a senior executive at Google. He served as the president of SoftBank Group from October 2014 to June 2016. On June 1, 2018, Arora took on the role ...

, who was recruited to Google by Kordestani himself, left for

SoftBank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...

. Initially interim, his post became permanent in October. On October 14, 2015, Kordestani left Google and became

. After a power struggle between Twitter chief executive officer

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American Internet entrepreneur and programmer who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc., as well as a co-founder and the CEO and chairperson of Block, Inc., the developer of the Squar ...

and

Elliot Management Elliot (also spelled Eliot, Elliotte, Elliott, Eliott and Elyot) is a personal name which can serve as either a surname or a given name. Although the given name has historically been given to males, females have increasingly been given the name ...

, Kordestani was replaced by

Patrick Pichette Patrick Pichette, is a Canadian businessman and executive. He was senior vice president and chief financial officer of Google from 2008 until 2015. He then became a venture capital fund manager, and is a director for several companies and a fo ...

in June 2020. He remained a member of the board until its dissolution in October 2022. In December 2021, Kordestani was appointed as chairman of the Board at

Pearson plc Pearson plc is a British multinational corporation, multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England. It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s.J. A. Spende ...

. His position became effective in March 2022.

Philanthropy

Kordestani was one of the founders of PARSA Community Foundation (2006–2011), an Iranian cultural, heritage, entrepreneurship, and philanthropic society based in Redwood City, California.

Personal life

Kordestani net worth was estimated to be $2.2 billion in 2012, after his divorce from Bita Daryabari. Kordestani has two children with Daryabari, and two with Gisel Kordestani, whom he married in 2011. In the May 8, 2006, issue of ''Time Magazine'', Kordestani was named one of Time's "100 People who shape our world". Kordestani was selected as the Persian Person of the Year in 2007 by Persian Awards.

References

External links