• by Tanya Gazdik , March 17, 2009

Google sales exec Dennis Woodside has been named VP, Americas Operations, replacing outgoing exec Tim Armstrong, who was named chairman and CEO of AOL last week.

Woodside, who has been with Yahoo for five and a half years, will start in the next few weeks, Google told employees Tuesday.

Omid Kordestani, Google's SVP, global sales & business development, to whom Woodside will report, said in an internal memo that Woodside has "brought incredible integrity and entrepreneurialism to everything he's done," according to Kara Swisher of D: All Things Digital, who obtained the memo.

"Ever since I met Dennis in 2003, I have been impressed by his combination of entrepreneurialism and operational excellence," Kordestani wrote. "He's never afraid to try new things and always ready to roll up his sleeves and pitch in--whether it means moving his desk to sit with the UK DSO team to see the operations first hand, or being the customers' advocate internally to help product and engineering better understand market trends."

"While we are all sorry to see Tim move on, change always brings new opportunities," Kordestani wrote. "We believe it's now time not just to roll-out globally the best practices from the different regional sales teams--the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific--but also to tailor our business strategies more closely to the different situations we face in different countries (more mature versus less mature markets)."

Armstrong is already embroiled in his new job at AOL. He led an employee rally today at AOL's former Dulles, Va. headquarters, and will hold a similar meeting at AOL's New York office Wednesday.