Patrick Pichette


Patrick Pichette is a Canadian businessperson. He is the chair of the Twitter Board of Directors. He was senior vice president and chief financial officer of Google Inc from 2008 until 2015. He is listed as a director and board member for Bombardier Inc. and the Trudeau Foundation. He is now a general partner at the venture capital fund Inovia Capital.

Early life and education

Pichette was born in Montreal.
He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Université du Québec à Montréal and an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Pembroke College, Oxford. He received a Rhodes scholarship.

Career

Before joining Google, Pichette worked at McKinsey & Company and Bell Canada from 2001 until 2008.
He was senior vice president and chief financial officer of Google Inc from 2008 until 2015.
In April 2011, it was announced that Pichette would also be taking over human resources responsibilities within Google from vice president Laszlo Bock, and business operations from Shona Brown.
In 2013, Pichette accepted a position on the board of directors for Bombardier.
In March 2015, he announced he would retire to travel the world. He said he retired to "enjoy a perfectly fine midlife crisis full of bliss and beauty.” He was succeeded as CFO by Ruth Porat.
In April 2018, he announced he would be joining Inovia Capital, a venture capital firm in Montreal, Toronto and San Francisco. After becoming a general partner at Inovia Capital, and splitting his time between the firm's offices in Montreal, Toronto, and London,

Boards

Pichette was appointed independent Board Chair of Twitter on June 2, 2020 ; he had been the lead independent director since 2018. He also is on the board of the Trudeau Foundation and on the advisory board of startups including Lightspeed POS, Boosted Boards, Zoona, OkHi, and Arctoris.
In 2019, Pichette became Chairman of OSI and brought CDL to Oxford.

Recognition

In June 2015, he received the National Order of Québec.

Personal life

Pichette now lives in London, and is married to Tamar Pichette.
He is involved in a conservation and research project with Nature Conservancy Canada in protecting Kenauk, a 65,000 acre territory between Montreal and Ottawa.