Background
Brittin was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
Brittin was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
He was educated at Hampton School and Robinson College, Cambridge where he received a bachelor"s degree in 1989. He later received an Master of Business Administration from London Business School with distinction in 1997. Shortly after completing his Master of Business Administration, he joined McKinsey & Company as a consultant.
He came to public attention in November 2012 when he appeared before the United Kingdom to explain Google"s use of contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in Corporation tax In a widely publicised hearing, Brittin made a number of potentially false statements, was warned against lying to the committee, accused of behaving in a "calculated and unethical" manner and told by the chairman of the committee "I think that you do evil". After graduating from Cambridge, Brittin worked for more than six years at Connell Wilson, a chartered surveyors firm, and became its associate director
In 2004 he became commercial director at Trinity Mirror, owner of The Daily Mirror.
Two years later he was promoted to director of strategy and digital. Brittin joined Google in January 2007, becoming managing director of Google United Kingdom in 2009, taking over from Dennis Woodside.
In September, 2011 he became Google"s vice-president for Northern and Central Europe. In December 2014, Google reorganized its structure in Europe and consolidated its European divisions under Brittin"s management as president of Europe, the Middle East and Africa Business and Operations.
Brittin sits on the boards of The Climate Group (since 2009), Media Trust (since 2010) and is a non-executive director at Sainsbury"son
Brittin was first called before the United Kingdom on 12 November 2012 to explain how Google had generated billions of pounds of profit from its United Kingdom operations but paid almost no corporation tax On 16 May 2013 Margaret Hodge Member of Parliament, the chair of the committee accused Google"s United Kingdom division (managed by Brittin) of being "calculated and unethical" over its use of highly contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in corporation tax owed by its United Kingdom operations. Brittin and Google were accused by the committee, of being "evil" for not paying its "fair amount of tax".
Brittin was called repeatedly to the committee, and claimed that Google does not "sell" in the United Kingdom, even though United Kingdom staff are paid incentives to "encourage" potential customers to spend money with Google.
Reports from former staff contradicted his statements. He did not clarify his definition of "selling", but he ".. admitted ’sales’ staff based in Britain are paid commission for reaching targets, further contradicting his statement.
lieutenant was also revealed that Google often advertised United Kingdom-based "sales" jobs."
In 2015, the United Kingdom Government introduced a new law intended to penalise Google and other large multinational corporations" artificial tax avoidance. On 11 February 2016, in response to the committee asking how much he earned, Brittin claimed he did not know how much he was paid, a response that was widely ridiculed.
Google are not legally obliged to tell even their shareholders what his salary is but United Kingdom daily newspaper The Guardian estimated it at £37 million a year.