Google’s parent company Alphabet has hired a leader from a prominent competitor to lead the financial department of its growing cloud computing arm.
Kobi Bar-Nathan, who previously served as CFO of database software and cloud computing firm Oracle since December 2022, has taken the reins as finance chief of Google Cloud this month, according to his LinkedIn profile. His appointment signals Alphabet’s intent to bolster the financial strategy of its cloud division, which is increasingly central to its AI ambitions and enterprise offerings.
Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, but the internet giant confirmed Bar-Nathan’s hiring to Bloomberg.
Bar-Nathan also spent more than a decade working at Microsoft before his nearly six-year tenure at Oracle. His most recent post at Microsoft was as finance director of the company’s cloud infrastructure division.
His experience at both Oracle and Microsoft likely gave him a wide range of Big Tech experience in enterprise cloud economics and the competitive dynamics of large financial infrastructure services. This could be critical as Google Cloud pushes, like its competitors, to gain market share.
The move comes as Big Tech firms vie to provide cloud services for generative artificial intelligence tools, which demand considerable computing power. Google Cloud provides the computing power for such tools at its growing range of data centers around the world.
By market share, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft remain the top two providers of cloud services, per Bloomberg’s reporting. For their part, Google and Oracle rank third and fifth, respectively, per the news outlet.
Though they directly compete in some areas, the main cloud service providers have also worked together in others. In September, for instance, Oracle announced it extended agreements with both Google and Amazon Web Services as part of the company’s wider “multicloud” strategy.
Google Cloud’s new finance chief inherits a formidable revenue generator for the company at large. In the first quarter of 2025, Google Cloud pulled in $12.3 billion in revenue, up 28% year over year, according to the company’s most recent financial earnings statements. For perspective, Alphabet recorded total revenue of $90.2 billion for the quarter.
With rising AI demand and competition between vendors putting pressure on cloud margins and infrastructure costs, Bar-Nathan’s financial leadership will likely help shape Alphabet’s approach to long-term profitability in this fast-growing sector.
