This isn’t the first time Sabrina Geremia has seen the world reshaped by technology.
Over her near quarter century in tech the now-vice president and managing director of Google Canada has enjoyed a front-row view of the economic, societal, and business upheaval that followed the proliferation of home internet access and the rise of mobile technology.
“These last two years and this AI acceleration moment feels like a different version of those early years to me,” she says.
Born and raised by Italian immigrant parents in the tiny town of Puslinch, Ontario — halfway between Hamilton and Guelph — Geremia spent the final year of her undergraduate business administration studies at Wilfrid Laurier University on exchange in Pavia, Italy.
It was there that she came across a sign advertising a work exchange program with Procter & Gamble in Rome.
“I ended up doing a work term at Procter & Gamble that turned into a full-time job that turned into 14 years in Europe,” she says.
Nearly five years later, in early 2000, Geremia was set to take the next step in her career, and move to the company’s European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, when she suddenly had a change of heart.
“I remember we were getting these presentations about the internet, and I knew people that were all flooding to Silicon Valley, and I was thinking about all of this while driving my little white Fiat 500 past the Coliseum on my way to work one day,” she says. “I was looking over at the Coliseum, and I was thinking about all the innovation and the Renaissance, and how amazing it would have been to be in the heart of it at that time, and it was just this moment of, ‘I need to be part of this.’”
Geremia resigned and began a yearlong trip around the world learning all she could about the emerging internet era, before landing her first role in the industry in 2001.
Her experience in both technology and consumer packaged goods eventually landed her a role with a rapidly growing tech pioneer in its consumer products and healthcare sales division in London, England in 2006. Geremia has worked for Google ever since.
Today, Google is one of — if not the single — largest and most influential companies on the internet. Roughly 92 per cent of the world’s internet traffic flows through its search engine, making it the most visited website on the planet, but that’s only the beginning.
The company is also responsible for widely popular services like Google Maps, Pixel, Gmail, Chrome, Docs, and Android, to name just a few, and its digital advertising services are used by about 80 per cent of all businesses on earth. Google’s Parent Company, Alphabet, meanwhile, owns and operates YouTube, Waze, Nest, Fitbit, among many others.
The company is so large and influential that the U.S. Justice Department is currently engaged in a historic antitrust lawsuit that could result in its breakup.
And just this week Canada’s telecommunications regulator rubber-stamped Google’s plan to dole out $100 million to the country’s embattled news sector, clearing the way for the global search giant to sidestep the Liberal government’s contentious online news law.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced Monday that it had given Google a five-year exemption from the law, and ruled that the cash must be given to the group responsible for distributing the money within 60 days.
The Star recently caught up with Geremia at Google’s new Canadian headquarters in downtown Toronto to talk about the tech giant’s early days, the country’s contribution to its global operations, whether growing concerns about AI are valid, and how Canadian businesses can seize the estimated $230 billion of economic value that the technology offers.
What was Google like when you joined in 2006?
It was a few thousand people, and we were at the first office in London. It felt like we were laying the groundwork. It was very much a startup that was growing very quickly. It was an exciting time.
Why did you return to Canada in 2007?
That was for personal reasons; my dad was unwell at the time, but thankfully he’s still going. But it had also been 14 years, and it felt like it was time to come home.
How did your role change when you moved to the Toronto office?
I like to say that I’ve worked all aisles of the grocery store. I’ve worked with pretty much every sector of the Canadian economy. At Google we try to understand the customer’s business objectives and help grow their business by helping them leverage our ad products and our marketing platform.
So far, we’ve facilitated over $60 billion in economy activity for Canadian businesses, and I’ve enjoyed watching many of these amazing organizations grow over the years. I’m proud of the work our team does in partnering with them and supporting that growth.
What has kept you at Google for the last 18 and a half years?
I’ve always looked for three things in my career.
I always want to be skating where the puck is going, not where the puck is, so staying ahead of technology trends and being on the edge of change always excites me.
Second, I think a lot about mindset and skills, and I think the two go hand in hand, especially in this AI moment. The mindset of being a continuous learner, a collaborator, of trying to find solutions for multiple stakeholders, developing new skills has always been important to me.
And third, I stayed at Google because I was surrounded by just such an amazing group of people, inside the company and across our partners. We have an amazing set of leaders in this country, and I am always learning from CEOs, CMOs, and other leaders. That’s the joy of my job; no day is the same.
Where do you see the puck moving now?
This AI moment is transformative. I lived through three of these shifts, already; the very first shift online, the shift to mobile — I spent a lot of time working with our teams here at Google, helping our clients understand that, yes, people would buy your shoes on a mobile phone — and now it’s so clear; it’s the great unlock of AI’s potential.
This is just such a huge moment, because it’s a general-purpose tool, it has many different applications, and there’s great unlocks for a lot of society’s big challenges, whether it’s in healthcare or insurance or fighting climate change. And I think it’s such an important opportunity for Canada specifically because we have deep roots in AI and I really hope we make the most of it.
How should businesses think about unlocking that potential?
I call it the “ABCs of AI adoption,” and the companies that are doing this well have three things in common.
The ‘A’ stands for ‘all teams,’ so it’s not just the CIO or the CTO, because it’s not just a technology change; it should involve the marketing team, the HR department, the legal team, the finance team, and the CEO, who sets the tone from the top.
The ‘B’ stands for ‘bold goals,’ and those who are successful in the early innings of AI adoption are not just setting progression goals, they’re setting bold business goals for value creation. Being really disciplined about your goals is super important.
And ‘C’ is for ‘culture,’ which starts with the CEO but it’s about fostering a culture of innovation, of trying things, and a willingness to adapt and change.
Are people right to fear some of those changes?
I was talking to my kids about this, because when I was 13, smart phones didn’t exist, the internet didn’t exist, and my job couldn’t have existed. They’re probably going to be in the same situation.
When you’re in moments of great change that you can’t forecast out, you often jump to fear. That’s why we’re so invested in our Grow with Google courses. We have 35,000 folks that have graduated with these micro credentials, and 75 per cent report having better job outcomes. The more people learn how to use the tool and see the benefits, the more positive they are about it.
I think Canada has more of a negative stance because the adoption is still getting there. The more we can put AI in the hands of people, and the more that we focus on responsible AI, the more promise people are going to see.
To what extent should AI be regulated?
AI is too important not to regulate, and it’s too important not to regulate well. We are not opposed to regulation; smart regulation is good for citizens and good for businesses. Our goal here is to work alongside policymakers, alongside global governments, to draw on our experience to help set this up.
What we want is a landscape of regulation that doesn’t put up border controls on this, so that Canadian businesses can work smoothly with global clients and partners, while mitigating the risks in a proportional way.
What is Canada’s contribution to Google’s global operations?
We have both the toolmakers and the tool deployers in terms of commercialization, so we get lots of interesting innovation coming out of Canada. We have thousands of engineers that are building products for the world in Waterloo, Montreal and Toronto, and we have teams dedicated just for Canada as well. In Toronto we have a mix of everything; we have a large commercialization team, our ads team that works with hundreds of thousands of businesses across Canada, and then we have our more sophisticated customers who are ushering in the age of AI.
Given the ongoing antitrust lawsuit, has the public’s relationship with the tech industry worsened during your career?
We need to earn our users’ trust every day. We’re an innovation company, we’re in this once in a lifetime moment for AI, and we are laser focused on just building helpful and innovative products that people are going to choose to use. Helpfulness is our mission, and we’re just got to keep focused on that.
