Alphabet taps Eli Lilly’s Anat Ashkenazi as new CFO

Eli Lilly’s Anat Ashkenazi will take over as Alphabet’s new CFO on July 31, according to Google’s parent company. This comes nearly a year after Ruth Porat, the current CFO, was appointed president and chief investment officer.

Ashkenazi had a 23-year career with Eli Lilly, which announced her departure in a separate statement.

“We’re very pleased to have found such a strong CFO, with a track record of strategic focus on long-term investment to fuel innovation and growth,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stated in a press release.

Ashkenazi joined Eli Lilly in 2001 and has served as its CFO since 2021. She will remain on the pharmaceutical company’s executive committee until her departure. She previously served as CFO for several of the company’s global business areas, assisting in managing the revenue increase from Eli Lilly’s weight loss and diabetes medications.

Porat spent nearly three decades as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, eventually becoming its CFO, before joining Google in 2015. She helped Google become one of the world’s most valuable companies. The company has recently faced threats ranging from the artificial intelligence race to antitrust investigations.

The leadership shuffle has been planned for quite some time. Porat announced her resignation in 2023, and Google has been looking for a replacement since then.

In recent months, Google’s finance unit has also been dealing with other changes. Porat announced earlier this year that Google was restructuring its finance unit as the company pushed to prioritize AI investments, as reported by CNBC, with layoffs and relocations affecting teams worldwide.

CNBC previously reported that Google’s “old guard” has experienced shifts beyond Porat. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, former Chief Business Officer Robert Kyncl, and widely respected AI expert Geoffrey Hinton are among those who have left or announced their departures since 2023.

Anat Ashkenazi serves on CNBC’s CFO Council.

CNBC’s Jenn Elias and Annika Kim Constantino contributed to this report.