Google faces a leadership exit as Bijoya Roy has stepped down from her role as the head of legal in India after just 16 months. This development raises new concerns regarding the company’s ongoing regulatory issues, though Roy has attributed her resignation to personal reasons and may pursue her own venture, as indicated in a Reuters report.
Roy’s departure is significant as it occurs during a critical period for Google in India. The company is already under regulatory scrutiny, and now it has lost a key government relations leader.
Currently, Google is confronting various challenges within the country, such as antitrust litigation, legal issues surrounding AI training data, and newly introduced content takedown regulations that became effective this February.
Roy joined Google India as the Head of Legal in November 2024. With nearly two decades of experience in the legal sector, she has held prominent positions at Tata Housing, Asian Paints, and Kodak, along with nearly ten years at Thomson Reuters in both London and Dubai. Most recently, in 2019, she served as Vice President of Group General Counsel at Flipkart.
At present, Roy has not issued an official statement regarding her departure, and Google has yet to release any public comments on this situation.
The company has been experiencing a wave of notable exits, as evidenced by the resignation of Sreenivasa Reddy, Google’s head of public policy in India, last year, with that role still unfilled.
As a company that has positioned India as one of its key global markets, the lack of senior legal and policy leadership could present numerous challenges.