Behshad Behzadi

Behshad Behzadi is a computer scientist with expertise in web search, machine learning and speech recognition. Having spent nearly 20 years at Google, it was announced in May 2024 that Behzadi has been appointed as CTO and Chief AI Officer of Sportradar.

Major Achievements

Behzadi has had a 20+ year career that has seen him take on executive roles at globally recognised company Google. His most notable achievements can be seen here, spending the majority of his career so far with the company.  

Throughout his time with the company, Behzadi was responsible for co-founding and launching Google Assistant, Google Lens and Google Smart Display – as well as leading a number of other projects for the company in his role as Distinguished Software Engineer and later VP of Engineering. 

In May 2024, Behzadi began a new chapter in his career, moving on from his role as Google’s VP of Engineering to become Sportradar’s CTO and Chief AI Officer. 

Employment

In 2002, Behzadi started his PhD in Computer Science from Ecole Polytechnique. He studied at the institution for three years in the realm of bioinformatics, completing his time as a student in 2005. 

Shortly after leaving Ecole Polytechnique, Behzadi landed a job at Google. His journey with the company began as a Principal Software Engineer – a role that he held for seven years from 2006 to 2013. During this time, Behzadi was responsible for leading the core web search ranking teams. He also led over one hundred launches that had a notable impact on daily global Google traffic. 

Building on his success in this role, Behzadi was promoted to Distinguished Software Engineer for Google. Again, Behzadi held this role for seven years, from 2013 to 2020. 

Throughout his time in this role, Behzadi held a sizeable amount of responsibility and played a role in the company’s success and innovation. He was responsible for co-founding and launching Google products and tools, including Google Assistant, Google Lens, Google Smart Display and Next Gen Assistant. 

Off the back of his contributions to the company, Behzadi was appointed as Google’s VP of Engineering in 2021. This role came with even more responsibility and leadership duties – seeing Behzadi take charge of Google’s Cloud AI programme.  

After spending nearly 20 years with Google, Behzadi stepped down from his VP of Engineering role in May 2024 after three and a half years in the position.  

His next role saw him become CPO, CTO and Chief AI Officer for Sportradar.

Regarding this new appointment, Sportradar CEO Carsten Koerl said: “We are proud to welcome Behshad… His proven track record in developing and commercialising product strategies to accelerate growth and innovation, as well as spearheading initiatives aimed at improving internal operational efficiency, will bolster our leadership position, keeping Sportradar at the forefront of technological advancement.”