Kent Walker

American legal executive (1961-)

Kent Walker

Personal details
Born| 1961 (age 63–64)
Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Spouse| Diana Walsh
Education| Harvard University (BA)
Stanford University (JD)

Kent Walker (born 1961)[1] is an American legal executive who has served as President of Global Affairs and chief legal officer of Google & Alphabet since 2021.[2]

## Early life and education

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This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2023)

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Walker was born in Palo Alto.[1] He graduated from Harvard College in 1983[1] and received his JD from Stanford Law School.[3]

## Career

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In 1990, Walker began his legal career in San Francisco at Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Robertson & Falk, now Arnold & Porter, and worked as a litigator specializing in government and public law issues. He then served 5 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the United States Department of Justice.[1]

Walker worked at various technology companies, starting in 1995 with Airtouch Communications. From 1997 to 2001[1] he was deputy general counsel at Netscape,[4] from 2001 until 2004 he worked for Liberate Technologies, and from 2003 until 2006[1] he was deputy general counsel at eBay.[5]

### Alphabet Inc.

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Since 2006,[1] Walker has advised Alphabet Inc.'s board and management on legal and policy issues,[5] its work with governments around the world,[6] its policies for content on its various services,[7] and its philanthropic efforts.[8] Since 2021, he has been President of Global Affairs and chief legal officer at Alphabet.[2] On September 12, 2023 Walker was followed by a man dressed up as Mr. Monopoly, as he went to attend Google's antitrust trial United States v. Google LLC (2023) at federal court in Washington, D.C.[9] in which the DOJ accused Google of illegally abusing its monopoly power as the largest online search tool.

As of 2022, Walker base salary at Alphabet was $1,000,000, with a maximum of a $2,000,000 annual bonus, one tranche of performance stock units of $5,000,000, and one tranche of restricted stock units worth $18,000,000.[2] For 2024, Walker's total compensation from Alphabet was $30.17 million, marking the first time that the general counsel of a US-based corporation was awarded more than $30 million in annual compensation.[10]

### Board service

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As of 2018, he served on the Harvard Board of Overseers[11] and was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[12] In 2015 he was on the HeartFlow Board of Directors,[13] and advised the Mercy Corps Social Ventures Fund.[14]

## Controversy

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In 2008, Walker introduced a "communication with care" policy at Google, which resulted in the company adopting a policy of automatic deletion of employee chat logs, a practice that became a source of legal controversy for the company during later federal antitrust lawsuits.[15][16] In 2024, the American Economic Liberties Project, along with two other advocacy groups, called for the State Bar of California to investigate Walker for allegedly coaching Google to "engage in widespread and illegal destruction" of records relevant to multiple federal lawsuits.[17]

## Personal life

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As of 2010, Walker was married to Diana Walsh, a former San Francisco Chronicle reporter, and they had three children.[1]

## References

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1. ^ a b c d e f g h Martin Kuz (2010-10-08). "Googling Kent Walker - Super Lawyers California". Super Lawyers. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
2. ^ a b c "United States Securities And Exchange Commission Form 8-K. Alphabet Inc". United States Securities And Exchange Commission. Washington, DC. 28 December 2021. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
3. ^ Jackson, Eric. "Why Does Google Crave Elites for Their Management Team While Apple Eschews Them?". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
4. ^ Jamie Zawinski (1998). "really bad attitude". www.jwz.org. Retrieved 2020-05-18.
5. ^ a b "Organizing the World's Information at Google Legal: Kent Walker, Vice President & General Counsel - Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC)". www.acc.com. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
6. ^ "Google has proposed changes in laws for requesting data". Recode. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
7. ^ "Google rolls out new policies for U.S. election ads – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
8. ^ "Google.org launches $5 million innovation fund to counter 'hate and extremism'". VentureBeat. 2017-09-20. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
9. ^ Harshawn Ratanpal (2023-10-05). "Google ramped up federal lobbying ahead of DOJ antitrust showdown". Open Secrets. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
10. ^ Andrews, Greg (2025-04-28). "Unfazed by Losing Antitrust Suits, Alphabet Makes Kent Walker First US GC to Break $30M Pay Barrier". Corporate Counsel. Retrieved 2025-05-09.
11. ^ "Kent Walker. Leadership Council on Legal Diversity". www.lcldnet.org. Archived from the original on 2018-03-17. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
12. ^ "Membership Roster". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
13. ^ "Kent Walker Joins HeartFlow Board of Directors". Retrieved 2018-06-01.
14. ^ "Mercy Corps' Social Venture Fund Overview" (PDF).
15. ^ Barrabi, Thomas (2023-10-30). "Google CEO Sundar Pichai grilled over company's deleted chat logs at antitrust trial". New York Post. Archived from the original on 2024-05-02. Retrieved 2024-08-28.
16. ^ Ostwal, Trishla (2024-08-27). "DOJ Claims Google 'Destroyed' Evidence Before Antitrust Trial". Adweek. Archived from the original on 2024-08-28. Retrieved 2024-08-28.
17. ^ Streitfeld, David (2024-11-20). "How Google Spent 15 Years Creating a Culture of Concealment". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2024-11-22. Retrieved 2025-05-03.

## External links

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* Media related to Kent Walker at Wikimedia Commons