Google Cloud is set for a change of leadership of its global telecom business just ahead of the cloud giant’s annual Next event and on the heels of scoring a significant deal with T-Mobile US.

Amol Phadke is leaving his position at Google Cloud, which he had held for just over three years. In a note on his LinkedIn page, Phadke wrote that he was “super excited to start my new adventure – taking on an exciting new opportunity within the telecom industry.”

“While it may be tempting to speculate about my departure as well as my new role, rest assured that I will be announcing what my next adventure is when the timing is right ... and it will be very soon,” he added.

A Google spokesperson confirmed Phadke’s departure, noting he was leaving the company “for another opportunity.

Phadke joined Google Cloud from Accenture, where he was focused on the network services market. The move came as Google Cloud made an all-out push to extend its cloud platform to support 5G mobile network operators.

The No. 3 cloud provider at that time detailed a three-part strategy for carriers, including driving revenues from 5G business services, data-driven experiences and improving operations in core network infrastructure. “Rapid technology advancements are impacting the telecommunications industry, whether it’s the rise of 5G and network-centric business models or new connected devices and applications,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian explained in a statement.

Phadke will be replaced by Ankur Jain, who is currently VP of Google Cloud and has been with the company for more than 18 years. Jain heads Google Cloud’s engineering, telecom industry and partnerships teams, and had previously worked on connectivity platforms like 5G, Google Fi, Loon and Google’s edge network.

Jain is set to partake in a future of telecommunications panel at Google’s Next event later this month.

The leadership change comes on the heels of T-Mobile US agreeing to link its enterprise-focused 5G Advanced Network Solutions (ANS) platform into Google’s Distributed Cloud Edge (GDC Edge) to support 5G applications and use cases. This will allow GDC Edge customers to leverage T-Mobile’s 5G network to support those opportunities.

“This partnership brings together the powerful combination of 5G and edge computing to unlock the expansion of technologies such as [augmented reality] and [virtual reality] from limited applications to large-scale adoption,” Mishka Dehghan, SVP for strategy, product and solutions engineering at T-Mobile Business Group, said in a statement.

Google’s GDC Edge is targeted at telecom providers wanting to run 5G core and radio access network (RAN) assets at the edge. It includes hardware and software components.

Google has touted Verizon and Bell Canada as two telecom operators using the GDC Edge platform. The Verizon deal was announced in 2021, where Google joined its cloud rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure in supporting the carrier’s broad edge initiatives. Bell Canada added Google to its ongoing work with AWS.