Groupon Loses Its New COO To Google

Sites include Google.com , Groupon.com . Published on September 30th, 2011. Written by Anthony West.

Corporate poaching is well and truly alive, and tech companies seem to be the experts at the practice. The latest victim of the practice seems to be Groupon, whom it’s been reported, has lost its COO to Google. But there’s more to the story than what meets the eye.

The COO is question, Margo Georgiadis, was previously VP of Global Sales at Google, and it was Groupon who did the initial poaching. Georgiadis was lured from Google in April, and at the time the news of the hiring was ripe with speculation. The biggest question was whether Georgiadis could steer Groupon’s IPO; there were also questions about Groupon’s viability and whether she would be able to steer the daily deals business from choppy waters.

Google is remaining mum on the return of the ‘prodigal daughter’ but it’s not difficult to see that Georgiadis was an asset to Google. Otherwise her return would not have been so smooth. Add to the mix the fact that Groupon seems to struggle with keeping its senior executives and you have one carnival of an atmosphere.

The only winner in this game of corporate poaching is Google. The search giant gets back into its fold a former VP—a VP who now has intimate knowledge of the daily deals business model. Georgiadis may very well be all Google needs to press forward with its own daily deals aspirations.

Do you think Google is capable of making the daily deals model work where Groupon has failed? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.