Yahoo's new CEO, Carol Bartz, plans to reorganize the company to
run under more centralized oversight, according to a report in
Monday's Wall Street Journal.
Following Yahoo's Pyrrhic victory last year against a Microsoft
takeover, Bartz needs to get the troubled company firing on all
cylinders again. To do so, she aims to bring a more unified design
to Yahoo's products and combine groups with duplicative
functions.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Bartz's corporate
reorganization plan could be announced this week.
A Yahoo spokesperson declined to comment, stating that the company
does not comment on rumor or speculation.
A minor complication for Bartz's plan is the departure of Neeraj
Khemlani, general manager of Yahoo's news group. Khemlani, it was
revealed on Monday, has decided to leave Yahoo to take a position
as VP and special assistant to the CEO for digital media at
Hearst.
According to Kara Swisher, writing for All Things D, Khemlani
had been in line to helm one of the three arms of Yahoo's new
content organization: vertical programming, network programming,
and search monetization.
Last summer, Yahoo endured what was widely characterized as an
executive exodus, as longtime managers and technical stars left the
company.
The departing executives included Qi Lu, executive VP of
engineering for Yahoo's search group; Brad Garlinghouse, senior VP
of communications and communities; Vish Makhijani, senior VP of
Yahoo's search group; Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield,
co-founders of Flickr; Usama Fayyad, Yahoo's chief data officer;
Bradley Horowitz, VP of product strategy; and Jeff Weiner,
executive VP of Yahoo's network group.
Under the new corporate structure, CTO Aristotle Balogh, who
joined Yahoo in January 2008, is expected to shoulder greater
responsibility, possibly as the executive in charge of all of
Yahoo's products.