Googler and fellow Greek Margo Georgiadis will be leaving her job as Vice President of Global Sales and Planning at Google Chicago to join daily deals site Groupon as Chief Operating Officer, Chicago Business is reporting. She will be replacing former COO Rob Solomon, who left the company in March.

At Google Georgiadis led a sales group comprised of over 1600 employees. Prior to Google, Georgiadis was a partner at McKinsey and Company, a CMO at Discover Card and Principal at Synetro Capital.

While Groupon declined to comment to Chicago Business, Senior Google VP Nikesh Arora expressed his congrats, “I’m grateful for all that Margo has done for our team over the past two years. We will miss her, but we’re also very excited that she’s joining a terrific company and a great partner for Google.”

Georgiadis’ position is a crucial one as the company prepares to IPO at a reported $15 billion dollar valuation in the spring and Groupon CEO Andrew Mason needs a Sheryl Sandberg to his Mark Zuckerberg. The company made $760 million in revenue last year, a number that Mason wants to increase to “billions” in 2011.

As it’s already technically spring I’m guessing Georgiadis’ schedule will be pretty tight in the coming weeks.

Image: LinkedIn

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Great news for Chicago entrepreneurship. Google exec Kevin Willer has been named CEO of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (CEC). An affiliate of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the CEC identifies the region’s most promising entrepreneurs and helps them build high-growth, sustainable businesses in the region.

Willer co-founded Google’s Chicago office in late 2000 and has helped grow the Google Chicago office to more than 400 professionals. Willer developed Google partnerships with advertisers and agencies, including Dell, United Airlines, FTD, State Farm, Omnicom, and Publicis. Willer also spearheaded advertising relationships with AT&T, Sprint, Dell and Motorola.

As a resident of Chicago, it’s great to see such a seasoned exec lead entrepreneurship efforts in the Windy City. As technology companies like Groupon, 37 Signals, GrubHub, Appolicious and others see success, Chicago is just another city proving that all innovation and entrepreneurship doesn’t take place exclusively in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch