Staffing Report: More Yahoo Exits
When Microsoft set out to buy Yahoo, they acknowledged part of the interest was Yahoo’s talented staff. Now out of it and sitting on the sidelines, seeing a shareholder revolt, and masses of that talent walking out, some Microsoft execs might be singing along to Garth Brooks “Unanswered Prayers” and counting blessings for the deal that wasn’t.
Over the past few days, a host of high profile Yahoo execs have pulled the ripcord, hit the eject button, or to mix metaphors even more, exited stage left.
Last week it was Jeremy Zawodny. This week, Jeff Weiner, EVP of the Network Group was one of the first big names to announce. He’ll leave at the end of June to jointly hold Entrepreneur In Residence roles with Greylock and Accel. He’ll divide his time between both venture funds.
Joining them at the going away party will be Brad Garlinghouse, head of Communities and Communications. Also leaving are Qi Lu, EVP of Engineer for Search and Ad Technology and Vish Makhijani, SVP and GM of search. Makhijani will become CEO of Yandex. The others haven’t announced where they’ll go.
More to go: Scott Moore, head of Yahoo Media Group (rumored but not confirmed), Flickr founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, and Delicious founder Joshua Schacter.
Yahoo is addressing the losses, maybe even caused many of them, with a sweeping reorganization plan reportedly being directed primarily by Sue Decker. More on that new structure once details are in.
OTHER NOTABLE MOVES:
•GANNET: USA Today hired former Money Magazine publisher Brett Wilson to replace Jeff Webber as SVP of Ad Sales.
•MICROSOFT: Phil Spencer, former GM of Microsoft Games Studios Europe will take on global responsibility and head the studio worldwide. Jeff Bell, VP of Interactive Entertainment Marketing will leave to pursue “other opportunities.”
•FACEBOOK: VP of Product Management Matt Cohler will leave in the fall to join Benchmark as a partner. He’ll stay involved with Facebook as a “special advisor.”
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•Surprise CFO Change at EA, Management Shift at CBS
•Corporate Housekeeping: New COO at EA
•Management Shakeups from Facebook to Warner Music
•Soundoff: Executive Soundbytes on “Content”
