Singh Cassidy, 39, had been with Google since 2003, frequently recognized as one of the company’s most influential and high-profile female executives. Google gave no immediate indication how it would fill the role she vacated.
“We are deeply grateful to Sukhinder for all that she has done for Google since she joined in 2003,” Eric Schmidt, Google CEO and chairman, said in a written statement. “She’s an ambitious, entrepreneurial executive who has a proven track record of building successful operations — most notably, developing Google’s advertising sales teams across Asia Pacific and Latin America. We wish her only the best as she pursues her passion to lead and run her own company.”
Singh Cassidy’s next stop will be Accel Partners, a venture-capital firm in Silicon Valley that has invested in ventures like Facebook and Glam Media. Her title there will be co-CEO.
In an interview with Kara Swisher of All Thing’s Digital, Singh Cassidy said that she had simply gone as far as she could at Google and was once again hoping to help build something from the ground up.
“I was at the end of my streak [at Google] and ready to take the next step and run or grow my own company,” she said. “It is key for me to be stepping out and spreading my wings now.”
In 1999 Sing Cassidy co-founded Internet financial-services company Yodlee (with funding from Accel Partners), and took the Latin American job at Google when the company had barely any presence in the region. She has also worked at Merrill Lynch, Amazon and BSkyB.
Sing Cassidy’s departure comes just a month after Tim Armstrong, Google’s top ad sales executive in North America, left to become the CEO of AOL, a job he coincidentally started on Wednesday as Singh Cassidy was announcing her departure.