Shailesh Prakash had served as a vice president and general manager for Google News. A source confirmed that he is no longer with the company.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on his resignation, citing people familiar with the matter.
The circumstances behind Prakash’s resignation were not immediately clear. Google declined to comment.
Prakash’s job experience gave him unique insight into the news industry’s gripes with Google.
He joined Google in Nov. 2022 after an 11-year stint at the Washington Post, where he served as chief product and technology officer, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He was credited with guiding the newspaper’s shift toward digital content during that period, including its creation of an in-house advertising technology business, the Journal said.
Prakash reportedly worked closely with billionaire Jeff Bezos after the Amazon founder bought the Washington Post for $500 million in 2013.
The outgoing Google executive previously held roles at Sears and Microsoft.
Google has faced intense scrutiny in recent months over its business practices and the alleged harm they have caused to news publishers, which rely on the search giant for the site traffic that underpins ad sales.
The Big Tech giant rankled online publishers last May after it introduced a feature called “AI Overviews” – which places an auto-generated summary at the top of its search results while burying links to other sites.
News Media Alliance, a nonprofit that represents more than 2,200 publishers, including The Post, said the feature would be “catastrophic to our traffic” and has called on the feds to intervene.
