Shona L. Brown (born ) is a business executive and consultant to non-profits and corporations. She was an executive at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

from 2003 to 2012, where she was senior vice president of business operations.

Life

Brown has a bachelor of computer systems engineering from

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

and a master's degree in economics and philosophy from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

as a

Rhodes Scholar The Rhodes Scholarship is an international Postgraduate education, postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Esta ...

. Brown received her Ph.D from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

's department of industrial engineering and engineering management, where she also did postdoctoral work on business theory. From October 1995 to August 2003, Brown was at

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company (informally McKinsey or McK) is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinse ...

, a management consulting firm, as a partner in the Los Angeles office since December 2000. In 1998, she published the book ''Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos'', with co-author Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, her doctoral advisor at Stanford. Brown joined Google in September 2003 and took on the responsibility of building both the people operations and business operations groups. In January 2006, she was promoted to senior vice president, and

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

included Brown as one of four rising stars in their most powerful women in business section, as a journalist called her Google's "chief chaos officer", testing her business theories at the company. In October 2007 she was involved with an illegal non-solicitation compact to not poach engineers from

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

Fortune Fortune may refer to: General * Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck * Luck * Wealth * Fate * Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling * Fortune, in a fortune cookie Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''The Fortune'' (19 ...

'' ranked Brown the sixth highest paid woman in 2010, with over $16 million in total compensation. Effective April 13, 2011, Brown kept her title of senior vice president for Google, but business operations and human resources were moved under chief financial officer

Patrick Pichette Patrick Pichette (born 1962) is a Canadian business executive and venture capitalist who was the senior vice president and the chief financial officer of Google from 2008 until 2015. He then became a venture capital fund manager, and is a dire ...

. She became a senior vice president for the

Google.org Google.org, founded in October 2005, is the charitable arm of Google, a multinational technology company. The organization has committed roughly US$100 million in investments and grants to nonprofits annually. The organization is noted for severa ...

charitable group (following

Megan Smith Megan J. Smith (born October 21, 1964) is an American engineer and technologist. She was the third Chief Technology Officer of the United States (U.S. CTO) and Assistant to the President, serving under President Barack Obama. She was previously ...

) from April 2011 to December 2012. In early 2013, she stepped down to become an advisor to Google and other companies. In November 2015, she joined the board of

Atlassian Atlassian Corporation () is an Australia, Australian-United States, American proprietary software company that specializes in collaboration tools designed primarily for software development and project management. Domicile (law), Domiciled in ...

. Shona Brown is currently serving as consultant/board member for a portfolio of corporate technology start-ups including Xperiel, Betterworks, ClearStoryData, Candor Inc, and Paperless Post. Brown is a director of the non-profit organizations such as San Francisco Jazz Organization, the Bridgespan Group, the Nature Conservancy, the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the

Exploratorium The Exploratorium is a museum of science museum, science, technology museum, technology, and art museum, arts in San Francisco, California. Founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer in 1969, the museum was originally located in the ...

, and

Code for America Code for America is a 501(c)(3) civic tech non-profit organization that was founded by Jennifer Pahlka in 2009, "to promote ‘civic hacking’, and to bring 21st century technology to government." Federal, state, and local governments often lack ...

. Brown also served on the board of

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Shona Living people Google people PepsiCo people Carleton University alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Alumni of New College, Oxford McKinsey & Company people American women business executives Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area 1960s births 21st-century American women Year of birth missing (living people)