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On my return to the UK after six years working from Google\u2019s Bay Area headquarters, I\u2019m immediately reminded of how centuries of longstanding tradition \u2014 from street names to architecture \u2014 blend seamlessly with the modernity for which Britain is also known.<\/p>\n
This country is a thriving home for the creative and advertising industries, a global centre of academic excellence and a financial powerhouse renowned for its long history of innovation. That\u2019s why I\u2019m so excited to be back in the birthplace of the inventor of the World Wide Web, leading Google UK as we work with businesses, consumers and the government to help everyone use technology to achieve their ambitions.<\/p>\n
While I\u2019ve just completed my first week at the helm of Google\u2019s operations in the UK and Ireland, this is, in many ways, a homecoming. I\u2019ve called London \u201chome\u201d for much of my life \u2013 beginning as a child in the 1980s, long before anyone even had dial-up internet, when it was the Sony Walkman that enabled music to go \u201cmobile.” I\u2019m also proud to have worked at Google for almost a decade. I joined the company in 2014, just after Deepmind came into the Google family \u2013 an important milestone in our pivot to becoming an AI-first organisation.<\/p>\n
In that time, I\u2019ve seen first-hand the power of Google and technology to improve people\u2019s lives and build businesses that contribute to economies around the world. In 2020, DeepMind\u2019s breakthrough discovery with AlphaFold meant we could accurately predict 3D models of protein structures for the first time \u2013 accelerating research in nearly every field of biology. That same year, Google\u2019s search and advertising tools helped support an estimated \u00a355 billion in economic activity for over 700,000 businesses in the UK, \u00a317 billion of that was from businesses that had never sold online before.<\/p>\n
Here in the UK, our locally-based engineering, marketing and sales teams work in partnership with colleagues in the U.S. and across the globe to develop helpful products \u2013 including Search, Pixel devices and Google Business Profile that are used the world over. I\u2019m looking forward to working with these teams as they explore technology\u2019s new frontiers and create products and services that improve people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n