Where Google’s Advertising Chief Searches for Insight

A week before Lorraine Twohill applied to engineering school in her native Ireland, she found herself reviewing a brochure about a new degree called international marketing. Its promise of a year studying abroad led the math whiz to swap engineering for marketing.

The last-minute shift three decades ago broke the heart of her father, a math teacher, but changed her life. Her studies at Dublin City University and year abroad in Spain put her on a path to become the chief marketing officer at Google, a role she has held long enough to watch the plucky search company transform into a tech giant with an ad budget of more than $5 billion.

“I started that course and never looked back,” Ms. Twohill said.

Bio Bits

• Age: 49
• Education: Dublin City University, international marketing and languages
• Family: married with two children
• First job: stocking shelves at a local grocer in Carlow, Ireland
• Favorite book: Anything by Zadie Smith or Jennifer Egan; “The Country Girls,” by Edna O’Brien; “Let the Great World Spin,” by Colum McCann.
• Pet project: Cycle for Survival bike ride to raise money to fund a Ph.D. student for a year to research rare cancers. WomenWill, a program started with women at Google to bring digital skills to 50 million women.
• Hobby: Walks with friends, board games, Peloton and family basketball
• Time alarm clock goes off on weekdays: At 7…

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