Kent Walker

Kent Walker (born 1961)

Early life and education

Walker was born in Palo Alto. He graduated from Harvard College in 1983

Career 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. from 2001 until 2004 he worked for Liberate Technologies, and from 2003 until 2006

Alphabet Inc. Since 2006, its policies for content on its various services, and its philanthropic efforts. Since 2021, he has been President of Global Affairs and chief legal officer at Alphabet. 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.

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

Controversy 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. 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.

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