Los Gatos, California (Silicon Valley):
Dinner with my Emory classmate Evgeny Ilintsky (MBA 06) at Coup de Thai restaurant in Old Town Los Gatos.
I grew up in Silicon Valley and used to go to Old Town Los Gatos often for lunch with friends. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Evgeny and his family moved from Moscow to Los Gatos 5 years ago. He picked a really good place to settle in the United States. Los Gatos is one of the more charming cities in Silicon Valley’s South Bay.
Evgeny and I had planned to meet-up with other Emory classmates in the SF Bay Area a while ago, but then COVID hit. I’m glad we were able to finally reconnect at a restaurant that surprisingly is a favorite of both of ours.
Evgeny and his wife have two daughters: the eldest is now 18 and his youngest is 10.
After business school, Evgeny and his family returned to Russia and worked shortly as a consultant before joining Google at their Moscow office in 2007. At that time, there were approximately 20 employees at Google Russia. By the time Evgeny left Google Russia for Google USA in 2016, the Moscow office had grown to around 150 employees.
Google Russia is a local subsidiary of Google. The subsidiary is responsible for Google Ad sales, local billing and formerly some of its R&D in Russia. According to Evgeny, when Google (and many other multi-nationals) decides to expand into a new country, they weigh in different options (e.g., through which channels to sell) and sometimes setup a wholly owned subsidiary to service that country and/or surrounding region.
Evgeny worked as a Finance Manager / Country Controller for Google Russia. He worked on the billing, compliance, contracts, tax reporting and payments, audit and other treasury activities for Google Russia and a number of other Google Eastern European subsidiaries (including Hungary and Ukraine). It was an exciting time in his career. He got to travel all over Europe working with other Google local offices. He and his team spearheaded the creation of their Google Ukraine subsidiary.
By 2016, Evgeny reached a point in his career where if he wanted to advance further he would either need to find work at another company or look for bigger opportunities within Google beyond their Moscow office. He decided to take a job with Google at their headquarters in the United States. One of the nice perks of working for Google is that they really take care of their employees. If an employee is hired for a job transfer to another country, Google HR will take care of all the visa and work permits for that employee.
For now, Evgeny is happy working for Google. His daughters love living in charming Los Gatos. But Evgeny and his wife do occasionally miss the excitement of big city life in Moscow.
I’m glad I was able to meet up and celebrate with Evgeny before the end of 2021. Evgeny hopes to reconnect with more Emory classmates in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2022.
