14 DAY TRIAL // Google may be weathering the economic downturn better than most companies, certainly better than many of its size, but it doesn't mean it couldn't do better. As the company continues to go through a, mostly unwanted, reshuffling of its sales and advertising department execs, it looks like another high-profile exec is about to leave it, if only to return in January to another position. David Fischer, who has led the company's self-serve advertising business, Google's biggest revenue earner, will take a sabbatical leave starting September 21, according to the Silicon Alley Insider.
Fischer has been with the company since 2002 and has made the advertising sales department responsible for the AdWords and the AdSense programs. Google's self-serve advertising arm now counts about 4,000 people and it makes up almost 50 percent of the company's revenue and 80 percent of its profits, with AdSense bringing in $1.68 billion in revenue in the second quarter, while Google on the whole made about $3.65 billion.
The ad sales exec will leave the company later this month, but will return in a new position next year, when he will lead Google's offerings in some of the most promising and potentially very profitable fields, like geolocation, local content and payments. While Google searches for a replacement, the company's global sales leader, Nikesh Arora, will take over Fischer's responsibilities as well. Nikesh himself hasn't held the global sales boss position long, having been Google's president of international operations before that.
Google's ad sales division has seen somewhat of a shakeup this year, losing top US sales man Tim Armstrong, who went on to become AOL's CEO, along with several other high-level execs leaving for greener pastures. Still, the company continues to make a generous amount of money from the advertising it serves and this probably isn't going to change anytime soon.