Alphabet taps company veteran for principal accounting post

Dive Brief:

Alphabet named company veteran Marsida Saraci as the tech giant’s next principal accounting officer, effective immediately, according to a securities filing Friday.
Saraci, 47, has worked for Google’s parent for about 15 years, most recently serving as vice president, finance - deputy controller. Prior to joining the company in 2011 she worked at Big Four firm KPMG for more than eight years.
The appointment follows roughly two months after Amie Thuener O’Toole stepped down from the dual roles of PAO and corporate controller at Alphabet. Thuener, 51, left the Mountainview, Calif.-based company to take the finance reins of the semiconductor and software infrastructure company Broadcom this month, CFO Dive previously reported.

Dive Insight:

Alphabet has a history of promoting women to its top finance and leadership posts. In 2024, the company tapped Eli Lilly veteran Anat Ashkenazi to succeed Ruth Porat, the company’s longest serving CFO. Porat stepped down from the post to transition to a newly created dual role of president and chief investment officer at the company.

In her new role, Saraci will receive restricted stock units (known by the company as Google stock units) valued at a total of $720,000, which begin vesting in July, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company did not disclose any further details related to her compensation in the filing.

Finance leaders across industries, but especially in the tech world, are racing to find uses for AI that will speed their finance functions. Alphabet is using artificial intelligence agents for processing invoices and boosting finance workflows as part of the company’s larger push to automate daily operations across the organization, Ashkenazi said on a company earnings call in February.

In April the company reported its net income nearly doubled to $62.57 billion for the first quarter from $34.5 billion in the year-earlier period. CEO Sundar Pichai touted the company’s AI investment and the company’s “full stack” approach, asserting that they are “lighting up every part of our business,” he said in a statement in a release at the time.