Hugo Barra

Hugo Barra is currently the Vice President of Virtual Reality at Facebook. He is currently leading all of Facebook’s VR efforts including Oculus.

Prior to Facebook, Hugo Barra was the Vice President of International for Xiaomi, responsible for the expansion of the Chinese smartphone company's product lineup into new international markets including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and additional countries in Southeast Asia; Latin America and eventually the U.S. market. Accomplishments include the launch of the new Redmi and Mi3 smartphones in Singapore and the recent launch of the MiPad, a 7.9 inch tablet. Barra has occupied the role since September 2013.

Prior to Xiaomi, Hugo Barra was Vice President and Product Spokesman for Android at Google, a role he started in December 2010, based in Mountain View, CA. Formerly, he was based in London as Global Head for Mobile Products at Google, a role he had since joining the company in March 2008.

Prior to Google, Hugo was Director of Nuance Communications, where he co-founded the company’s global business unit focused on mobile voice search and mobile voice messaging software products. During his nearly 5 years at Nuance, he held roles in several areas, including product management, product marketing, and business development, and he launched a number of speech recognition products that positioned Nuance to become one of the world’s largest mobile software providers. He joined Nuance after the company acquired LOBBY7, a Boston-based mobile software company that Hugo co-founded. LOBBY7 spun off of the MIT Media Lab and was backed by SOFTBANK.

Earlier in his career, Hugo worked as a summer intern at McKinsey & Company, Merrill Lynch, Netscape Communications, and Walt Disney Imagineering.

A native of Brazil, Hugo received a bachelor's and a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, as well as a bachelor's degree in management science from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. As a student, he worked as a research assistant at the MIT Media Lab and MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, and he was MIT Senior Class President from 1999 to 2000. When not working on Google mobile products, Hugo enjoys playing squash and Salsa dancing.