Omid Kordestani was born in Tehran, Iran and grew up there attending Andisheh Don Bosco School, an Italian Catholic school in Tehran that emphasised education and language skills. He moved to San Jose, Californiaafter the death of his father in 1976.
Kordestani has more than a dozen years of high-technology consumer and enterprise experience, including key positions at Internet pioneer Netscape Communications. He was also vice president of Business Development and Sales and grew Netscape's website revenue from an annual run-rate of $88 million to more than $200 million in 18 months. He started his career at Netscape as director of OEM Sales, and during his four-year career at that company he was responsible for establishing major customer relationships with Citibank, AOL, Amazon, Intuit, Travelocity, Intel, @Home, eBay, and Excite. Prior to Netscape, Kordestani held positions in marketing, product management, and business development at The 3DO Company, Go Corporation, and Hewlett-Packard. He joined Google in May 1999, leading the development and implementation of the company's initial business model and was Google's senior vice president of worldwide sales and field operations until April 16, 2009. Kordestani played a part in Google's worldwide revenue generation efforts as well as the day-to-day operations of the company's sales organization. On July 18, 2014, Kordestani came back to Google to fill the vacancy of Chief Business Officer at Google after Nikesh Arora, who was recruited to Google by Kordestani himself, left for SoftBank. Initially interim, his post became permanent in October. On October 14, 2015, Kordestani left Google and became Executive Chairman at Twitter.
Philanthropy
Kordestani is one of the founders of PARSA Community Foundation, a Persian heritage, entrepreneurship and philanthropic society.
Personal life
Kordestani net worth was estimated to be $1.4 billion in 2009, after his divorce from Bita Daryabari. Kordestani has two children with Daryabari, and two with Gisel Kordestani, whom he married in 2011.
Recognition
In the May 8, 2006 issue of Time Magazine, Kordestani was named one of Time's "100 People who shape our world". Kordestani was selected as the Persian Person of the Year in 2007 by Persian Awards.