The Google China executive Lee Kai-Fu, the prominent head of the company's operations, is going to quit his post to start a new venture.

Two current executives viz. Yeo Boon-Lock and John Liu will share Lee Kai-Fu's responsibilities.

Yeo Boon-Lock, the director of Google's Shanghai engineering office, will assume engineering responsibilities for Google China, while John Liu, the vice president of sales and operations will assume Mr. Lee's business and operational responsibilities.

Lee Kai-Fu who joined Google in 2005 will leave the company in mid-September.

Lee Kai-Fu's former employer, Microsoft sued Mr. Lee and Google, claiming that Mr. Lee had an agreement that precluded him from working for a competitor. The suit was settled a few months later.

Alan Eustace, Google's senior VP for engineering, said, "Kai-Fu has made an enormous contribution to Google over the last four years, helping dramatically to improve the quality and range of services that we offer in China."

Google's main competitor in china is Baidu, which has around 61.6 per cent share of China's search market. On the other hand, Google has 29 per cent share of the search market in china.