Kai-Fu Lee, the executive who led Google Inc.'s expansion in China, is to leave the company, which was announced Friday September 4.

Kai-Fu Lee [file]

Lee will step down as the president of Google Greater China in mid-September to set up a new venture in Beijing, details of which have not been released. Google said Boon-Lock Yeo, director of its Shanghai engineering office, would take over Lee's engineering responsibilities. John Liu, who leads its Greater China sales team, will assume his business and operational responsibilities.

Lee previously worked for Microsoft Inc. and was hired by Google in 2004. He oversaw development of services meant to help the search giant expand its share of China's search market, which is dominated by local rival Baidu Inc.

While Google has increased its market share it still trails behind Baidu. Google has achieved only a 29.1 percent share of search traffic compared to Baidu's 61.6 percent according to Analysis International, a technology research firm.

During his employment at Microsoft between 2000 and 2004 Lee helped develop its MSN Internet search technology, including desktop search software which rivaled Google's.

He left to lead Google's China operation after being offered a US$10 million compensation package. It was an acrimonious split that led to Microsoft suing Lee and Google, contending his job would violate a non-compete agreement that prohibited him from doing similar work for a rival for one year.

Microsoft also accused Lee of using insider information to get his job at Google. Microsoft was counter sued by Google and the companies later reached a settlement, the details of which were not released.

During his time at Google, Lee helped start Google’s Chinese-language site, and oversaw the roll-out of services including Google Maps, Google Music Search and Google Translate.

"It has been a true honor and privilege to work with such an amazing company," Lee said in a statement released by Google, "With a very strong leadership team in place, it seemed a very good moment for me to move to the next chapter in my career."

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