Confirming the news to ET on Friday, a Google India spokeswoman said that February 3 was Canadian-born Shailesh Rao’s final day at Google, where he served as managing director of media and platforms across Asia Pacific and managing director of Google India.
“We thank Shailesh for his fantastic contributions to Google and Google India, in particular, and wish him the best in his future endeavors,” the spokeswoman added.
In his dual capacity role, Rao headed the company’s display advertising business across the continent and headed up operations in India.
(Shailesh Rao, managing director at Google’s Asia-Pacific operations)
Twitter said that Rao will come on board later this year to work with more than 100 million users, on the advertising side of the business, Matt Graves, a spokesman for the San Francisco-based company, said today by telephone. However, it is still vague exactly as to what his day-to-day responsibilities and markets will be.
The firm is exploring to spread its presence and revenue outside of North America and key European markets, having most recently introduced a feature to help it comply with censorship, an introduction that was welcomed in parts of Asia last week.
Besides, the micro-blogging outfit is trying to bolster its revenue after announcing an advertising platform for the U.S. in 2010 and a global ad push in 2011. Twitter’s ad revenue is estimated to triple over the next two years to hit $540 million by 2014, according to research from eMarketer.
Prior to heading Google display-ad sales in Asia, Rao 41, had served as managing director for the company’s business in India and once worked as a director in charge of local search and new content partnerships worldwide. He was instrumental in launching of Google Maps and Earth across Western Europe and parts of Asia and Latin America.
Before joining Mountain View California-based Google, owner of the most popular Internet search engine, Rao has been employed at banking-software firm Yodlee Inc. and AOL amongst others.
Rao has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, a BS from the Wharton School with a concentration in finance, and an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management.
As a matter of fact, appointing an experienced Asia veteran like Rao, who has experience growing ad revenues in the region, is clearly a key move to boost its presence and increase revenue in new and potentially lucrative markets.
Nevertheless, the move is also likely to reap the fruits Twitter tap into Rao’s experience in India. With the service blocked in China, with little sign of anything changing soon, India’s 1.17 billion population makes it the next biggest country in Asia and a logical target for Twitter.