Patrick Pichette, is a Canadian businessman and executive. He was senior vice president and

chief financial officer The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and fina ...

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

from 2008 until 2015. He then became a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which h ...

fund manager, and is a director for several companies and a foundation."Former Google CFO Patrick Pichette just joined the world of venture capital"
Connie Loizos, April 11, 2018, ''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Goi ...

Early life and education

Pichette was born and raised in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

, Quebec. He holds a

Bachelor of Business Administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...

degree from

Université du Québec à Montréal The Université du Québec à Montréal (English: University of Quebec in Montreal), also known as UQAM, is a French-language public university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the Université du Qué ...

(1987) and a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Pembroke College of the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. He received a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

Career

Pichette began his career working at

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

and

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in ...

from 2001 until 2008. He was senior vice president and

Google Inc. 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. It ...

from 2008 until 2015. In April 2011, it was announced that Pichette would also be taking over

human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms includ ...

responsibilities within Google from vice president

Laszlo Bock Laszlo Bock is a Romanian-born American businessman, who is co-founder and CEO of Humu (software), Humu. He was formerly the Senior Vice President of People Operations at Google, Inc. Early life and career He was born in 1972 in Romania to et ...

, and BizOps from

Shona Brown Shona L. Brown (born ) is a business executive and consultant to non-profits and corporations. She was an executive at Google from 2003 to 2012, where she was senior vice president of business operations. Life Brown has a bachelor of computer ...

. In 2013, Pichette accepted a position on the board of directors for

Bombardier Inc. Bombardier Inc. () is a Canadian business jet manufacturer. It was also formerly a manufacturer of commercial jets, public transport vehicles, trains, and recreational vehicles, with the last being spun-off as Bombardier Recreational Prod ...

, a position he held until 2017. In March 2015, he announced he would retire to travel the world. He was succeeded as CFO by

Ruth Porat Ruth Porat (born 1958) is a British-American business executive serving as Chief Financial Officer of Alphabet and its subsidiary Google since 2015. In 2020, Porat was listed as the 16th most powerful woman in the world by ''Forbes'',

. In June 2015, he received the National Order of Québec. In April 2018, he joined Inovia Capital, a

firm with offices in

, Toronto, San Francisco and London."INovia Sngas CFOs from Google and Blackberry to Lead Growth Fund"
''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', April 11, 2018 After becoming a general partner at Inovia Capital, Pichette is splitting his time between the firm's offices in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, Canada and Silicon Valley. In 2019, Pichette became a lead founding member of UK's Creative Destruction Lab at Oxford. In 2021, Pichette was appointed as a board member of indoor cycling app company Zwift. Pichette was appointed independent board chair of

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 ...

on June 2, 2020. He served as lead independent director from 2018–2022. After

Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter Business magnate Elon Musk initiated the acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 27, 2022. Musk began buying Twitter shares in January 2022, eventually becoming the company's ...

in October 2022, Musk fired the entire board of directors, including Pichette, leaving Musk as the sole board member. Pichette serves on the Board of Directors as Chair of the Board at Montreal-based company

Lightspeed The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit for ...

. He joined in October 2018 and took the position of Lead Independent Chair in February 2022. He served chair of the board of directors at the Trudeau Foundation from November 2018 until March 2021. Pichette is a board advisor to the start-up Arctoris.

Personal life

Pichette lives in London, and is married to Tamar Pichette. He and his wife Tamar are involved in philanthropic projects including a conservation and research project with Nature Conservancy Canada in protecting Kenauk, a 65,000 acre territory between Montreal and Ottawa. They are active partners in a project with

Himalayan Cataract Project The Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) was created in 1994 by Dr. Geoffrey Tabin and Dr. Sanduk Ruit with a goal of establishing a sustainable eye care infrastructure in the Himalaya. HCP empowers local doctors to provide ophthalmic care through s ...

, building an eye hospital in Ethiopia.

References

External links

Biography at Inovia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pichette, Patrick Alumni of Pembroke College, Oxford Canadian Rhodes Scholars Google employees Université du Québec à Montréal alumni Living people McKinsey & Company people Chief financial officers Knights of the National Order of Quebec Year of birth missing (living people) Directors of Twitter, Inc.