Google’s VP of Commerce, Stephanie Tilenius, Moves Into Global Role

Google’s VP of Commerce, Stephanie Tilenius, who was helping to lead the company’s mobile payments initiative, is changing roles to oversee the company’s commerce efforts internationally.

Asa Mathat | AllThingsD.com

Stephanie Tilenius demonstrates Google Wallet at the D9 conference.

Over the past year, Tilenius has been visible for her role in Google Wallet, one of Google’s biggest bets in commerce to date.

In May, she was one of the main executives to unveil Google Wallet at an event in New York, and a week later, at our D event in California, demonstrated how easy it was to tap an Android phone at the register to check out.

In a statement, Google spokesman Nate Tyler said: “Stephanie is moving to a new role where she will oversee global strategy and work with key partners to expand our commerce efforts internationally.”

Tilenius will continue to report to Jeff Huber, SVP of Commerce & Local.

In her previous role, Tilenius was overseeing Google Checkout, which recently merged with Google Wallet so that users needed only one payment account to cover purchases across Android Market, YouTube, Google+ Games and other Google properties.

The former eBay executive also played a role in Google’s negotiations to buy Groupon, which ultimately failed. Instead, Google launched Google Offers to compete with Groupon head-on.

Presumably, Tilenius will continue to work on all of these products but in an international capacity.

Tilenius was also in the spotlight in May, on the same day as the New York Google Wallet launch, when PayPal filed suit against Google and two of its former executives – Tilenius and Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of payments and former PayPal executive. The lawsuit claimed that Google and the two employees misappropriated trade secrets and violated contracts involving recruiting agreements.