Reyes is 53 years old and has been with Google for 5 and a half years.
As expected in such cases, the company soon-to-be-former CFO stated that he would remain to assist in the search for a new CFO and to assure an orderly transition. Reyes added that he expects to finally leave his position by the end of the year.
"I’ve known and admired George since our days together at Sun. As Google’s CFO, George successfully navigated our innovative IPO, the regulatory demands of Sarbanes-Oxley, and the management challenges of scaling a global finance organization. Though we fully appreciate his decision to step back from active management, we’ll miss his thoughtfulness, good humor and wisdom."(Eric Schmidt, Google Chairman and CEO)
Aside from the good words, neither Google nor Reyes have stated the reason behind the latter’s leave. Google’s stock price and profits are going only up, so troubles with keeping up the work are hardly the case here. So it’s one of the two: either Reyes is looking for a (permanent) vacation or he’s just looking for a new challenge. Time will tell which version is the right one.