SAN FRANCISCO — Google has lured away Morgan Stanley’s chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, to be its CFO at a time when the Internet search leader and its Silicon Valley peers are under fire for hiring and promoting too few women.
The appointment announced Tuesday fills a void that opened this month after Google’s CFO of the past seven years, Patrick Pichette, announced his plans to retire.
Porat, 58, will become Google’s highest-ranking female executive when she starts her new job May 26. Her last day at Morgan Stanley will be April 30, ending a 28-year career at the New York investment bank.
Google and other Silicon Valley heavyweights, including Apple and Facebook, are trying to add more women to their payrolls.
The push began during the past 10 months after the companies released data revealing that women filled only 15 percent to 20 percent of the tech jobs, which tend to pay the most.
Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm that has financed Google and other prominent technology companies, is embroiled in a San Francisco trial that is airing embarrassing allegations of sexual discrimination.
Lawsuits have been filed by women who formerly worked at Facebook and Twitter.
