Google Cloud chief operating officer Diane Bryant has left the company after less than a year.

“We are grateful for the contributions she made while at Google and we wish her the best in her next pursuit,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

Before joining Google in late November 2017, Bryant spent more than 25 years at Intel, most recently leading its data center group. She took what was supposed to be a temporary leave from that role in May due to “family matters,” but ended up joining Google instead, under cloud CEO Diane Greene.

Bryant’s hire was a win for the search giant’s cloud business, which is widely seen as No. 3 in the public cloud market, behind Amazon and Microsoft. As the relative newcomer in the space, Google Cloud’s challenge has been to prove its capabilities to large businesses, though CEO Greene has said that there are no more “deal blockers” in the way of new contracts.

Under Greene, the cloud unit hasn’t made any significant acquisitions, though she recently said at an event that she “wouldn’t have minded” buying software developer platform GitHub, which Microsoft agreed to acquire for $7.5 billion in early July.

People familiar with the situation had previously told CNBC that Google representatives had been in talks with GitHub in the week’s leading up to Microsoft’s deal.

As for Bryant, before she left Intel she was considered one of the company’s top three executives. After CEO Brian Krzanich suddenly resigned in June due to a relationship with an employee, analysts floated her name as a possible successor.

Business Insider first reported the news of Bryant’s departure.

Source: Tech CNBC
Google Cloud's COO has left after less than a year