Two former members of the Google Maps team have navigated their way to Microsoft, joining the Redmond company as corporate vice presidents on its Maps and Local team, part of its Web Experiences (WebXT) group.
Nicholas Lee, former senior director of engineering for Google Maps, who worked at Google for nearly 17 years, was named the new leader of Microsoft’s Maps and Local team in an internal memo viewed by GeekWire.
Also joining Microsoft is Russell Dicker, who was previously senior director of product for Google Maps Routing + Navigation, Google Automotive Services, Transit & Multimodal, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Microsoft declined to comment in response to our inquiry about the new hires.
The WebXT group, led by Mikhail Parakhin, Microsoft Web Experiences president, includes the Bing search engine, Microsoft News, Maps, the company’s advertising platform and the Edge web browser.
Microsoft posted more than $3 billion in search and news advertising revenue in the December quarter, up 32% year-over year, excluding traffic acquisition costs.
