Eric Schmidt in August 2001. At Google, Schmidt shared responsibility for Google's daily operations with founders Page and Brin. Prior to the Google initial public offering, Schmidt had responsibilities typically assigned to the CEO of a public company and focused on the management of the vice presidents and the sales organization. According to Google, Schmidt's job responsibilities included "building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company and on ensuring that quality remains high while the product development cycle times are kept to a minimum." Upon being hired at Google, Eric Schmidt was paid a salary of $250,000
Stuart Gulliver then Group Chairman of HSBC, announced that he would step down, in order to accept the invitation of the UK Prime Minister to become Minister of State for Trade and Investment in January 2011. As a result of Stephen Green's decision to step down earlier than planned, Michael Geoghegan, the then Group CEO of HSBC, announced his retirement and Stuart Gulliver, who led HSBC's investment-banking division since 2006, was appointed as the new Group CEO of HSBC Holdings plc, effective 1 January 2011. He was also appointed the Chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, a wholly owned