Sunnyvale, California Amid upheaval in Yahoo’s ad sales operation, and to thwart critics who continue to hound Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz for an unstable management team, the portal company has hired “Wayne Powers,” a former Time Inc executive, to revive its slumping ad sales business as its North American ad sales senior vice president.
The post is pretty crucial at Yahoo, which has witnessed a large number of exodus of senior executives over the past year. The position had been vacant since March after the departure of Joanne Bradford, who joined Demand Media.
Carol A. Bartz, Yahoo’s chief executive, is attempting to make a reversal at Yahoo amid sluggish growth. Prolonged decision making and a lack of creativeness have left the Web site adrift while competitors like Google and Facebook thrive.
Powers, 49, has been president of the Time Inc. Media Group, the magazine division of Time Warner Inc., and helped launch Time’s Digital Network, an online ad platform, will now serve as SVP advertising sales for North America at Yahoo, and will be based in New York.
Powers will report to Yahoo’s newly appointed EVP of the Americas, Ross Levinsohn, the company said on Wednesday. Levinsohn was named as the replacement for longtime Yahoo exec Hilary Schneider in late October.
“Wayne is a proven leader and innovator who will bring a wealth of operating expertise and advertiser relationships to Yahoo,” Levinsohn said in a statement. “His record of brand building with advertisers and his focus on driving revenue through creative executions will serve both Yahoo! and Madison Avenue well.”
Wayne Powers
Powers, who oversaw Time’s ad partnerships starting in 2006, and was responsible for developing and launching the publisher’s digital network, where he receive Time Inc. ads from Fortune 500 advertisers, is the second major hire for Ms. Bartz in the recent weeks, will replace Joanne Bradford, who left Yahoo to join Demand Media in March. Since then, outgoing Exec VP Hilary Schneider has headed sales, and delegated authority to several regional sales execs. Ross Levinsohn, a former News Corporation executive, was appointed to lead Yahoo’s North American operations late last month.
Powers also functioned as president of Time’s integrated sales group, Media Networks, in addition to Targeted Media, a division of Time that offers sponsored magazine cover wraps. Powers also worked as a sales exec with CPG firms including Nestle and Dole Packaged Foods.
Although, Yahoo is expected to remain the No. 1 seller of display ads in the U.S. by revenue this year, but the Sunnyvale, Calif.based internet company, which announced flat revenue for the most recent quarter, endured several executive defections when Mrs. Schneider, Senior VP David Ko and media VP Jimmy Pitaro all announced last month they would be leaving the company, though separately from each other. Pitaro is moving to Walt Disney, where he will be copresident of its digital arm. Ko is headed to online gaming network Zynga to manage its mobile efforts.
But Facebook, the world’s No. 1 social network, is grabbing a bigger portion of the total number of display ads viewed on the web. Facebook accounted for nearly one in four display ad impressions in the U.S. in the third quarter, according to comScore.
AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher first reported news of Powers’ hire.