LONDON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - The man charged with

overseeing Google's operations in Europe, the Middle

East, and Asia has stepped down after a decade in post.

Matt Brittin first joined the tech giant as head of UK and

Ireland operations in 2007, before rising through the ranks to

become vice president of northern and central Europe, and then

EMEA president in 2014.

Prior to his time at Google, Brittin spent several years

working as a consultant for McKinsey & Co, as well as a stint as

commercial director Trinity Mirror, later rebranded as Reach

PLC.

In a post announcing his departure on social media platform

LinkedIn, Brittin praised colleagues whose AI advances this week

won the Nobel prize for chemistry, and shared advice one of

Google's co-founders gave him when he arrived at the company.

"When I joined Google in January 2007, Larry Page advised me

to 'put the best people you can on important work, and get out

of the way.' It's been the privilege of my life to try to honour

this - working with brilliant teams to help build tech that

makes the world better," he wrote.

Brittin said he would continue running Google's EMEA

operations until a successor had been chosen.