Gavin Newsom, governor of California, has hired Richard (Rick) Klau, formerly of corporate venture capital unit GV, as the US state’s chief technology innovation officer.
Klau had previously been a senior operating partner at GV, the corporate venturing arm of US-listed internet and technology group Alphabet formerly known as Google Ventures, from 2011 to 2020.
For his final near-two years at GV, Klau ran its partnerships team as a business or corporate development practice “designed to connect our portfolio companies to the C-suite at Fortune 500 companies, large government agencies and NGOs (non-government organisations),” he said in his LinkedIn profile.
Before joining GV just after its launch, Klau had been a product manager at internet technology provider Google from 2008 to 2011 and a strategic partner development manager at the company from 2007 to 2008.
Newsom has also hired Liana Bailey-Crimmins as the state’s chief technology officer at the California Department of Technology to work with Klau, while Russell Nichols has been appointed chief deputy director and deputy state chief information officer.
Photo of Rick Klau courtesy of Linkedin.
