Alphabet Inc.’s Google appointed Halimah DeLaine Prado as general counsel, who is a company’s experienced person and one of the technology giant’s most senior Black executives.
Promotion of DeLaine Prado will likely to be welcomed by Black employees at the company who have been pushing for more diversity. CEO Sundar Pichai earlier this year, committed to increase leadership representation of underrepresented groups by 30% by 2025. Google’s 2019 diversity report said that 2.6% of Google’s leaders were Black.
Since 2018 Google hasn’t had a general counsel, when Kent Walker was promoted to senior vice president of global affairs, a position responsible for responding to the swell of regulatory and privacy-related issues the company has faced in recent years. DeLaine Prado will report to Walker.
She said in a statement, “Google has been my home for nearly 14 years, allowing me to work on some of the most complex and important legal issues of the digital age with a world-class legal team.” “I am excited for this new opportunity and I cannot wait to get started.”
DeLaine Prado was currently a vice president in the legal department, where she ran a global legal team that advised on Google products including Ads, Search, Cloud, Hardware, Platforms & Ecosystems, and YouTube.
“Halimah has been a trusted counselor and exceptional leader,” said Walker in a statement. “She is uniquely qualified to lead the Legal Department at this critical moment.”
