Patrick Pichette, president of operations at Bell Canada, is to take over from George Reyes as chief financial officer of Google.

Reyes has been with Google for more than six years, and announced his intention to stand down last August citing personal reasons.

The announcement followed a turbulent time for the CFO's family after his nephew Gregory Reyes, chief executive of Brocade Systems, became the first executive to be found guilty of stock option backdating.

Pichette brings 20 years of experience in financial operations to the search giant. He joined Bell Canada in 2001 as executive vice president of planning and performance management, becoming chief financial officer in 2002 and 2003.

Google said in a statement that Pichette will start on 1 August and take up the post of CFO on 12 August.