New York — AOL Inc., which is being separated from Time Warner, said it has appointed “Brad Garlinghouse,” a former Yahoo executive who was accredited with exposing the deep problems at the Internet company, as President of Internet and Mobile Communications, spearheading AOL’s global efforts to expand the reach of its e-mail and instant messaging, the company announced early on Tuesday.
Garlinghouse, who was most recently served as an in-house senior advisor at venture capital firm Silver Lake Partners, will also assume an expanded role heading up AOL’s Silicon Valley operations from its Mountain View, California campus.
In his new role, Garlinghouse will take on the battle to expand the reach of AOL’s popular e-mail and instant-messaging services. AOL, also said Garlinghouse will serve as the company’s West Coast lead for AOL Ventures, the company’s unit in charge of investing in start-ups and spinning off businesses arm headed by Jon Brod. He will be stationed at AOL’s offices in Mountain View, Calif., where the company’s email operations are based.
Garlinghouse is probably famous for his days at Yahoo! when he called attention to Yahoo!’s problems in an internal memo referred to as the “peanut butter manifesto,” arguing the company has spread itself too thin. He worked with Yahoo! for nearly six years, leaving as a senior vice president in which he was in charge of the company’s communications and community products.
Garlinghouse is the latest senior executive to join AOL, a unit of Time Warner. Tim Armstrong, the new chief executive of AOL, is attempting to revive the company’s fortunes and polish its tattered image with consumers and investors.
“Brad Garlinghouse is an all-star in the Internet industry with an unparalleled background and proven track record, having led Yahoo’s communications products to unprecedented growth,” said Armstrong in a statement Tuesday.
“In addition to extending our efforts to grow our communications products, Brad will be contributing his global leadership and business experience as a key member of our company’s executive leadership team. He will also be a major force for AOL in Silicon Valley, working to expand our presence there and in the tech community in general. We are delighted to have Brad on board and know he will do great things for AOL,” Armstrong added.
Garlinghouse’s new group includes AOL’s e-mail, instant messaging and mobile communications. He will report directly to AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong.
Last month AOL named former Time Warner Cable executive Arthur Minson as its chief financial officer.
“It is a tremendous opportunity to join AOL at this pivotal moment in its history,” Garlinghouse said. “Tim has set out a clear strategy and vision for where he is taking this company as it becomes independent again. I’m looking forward to working with him and the rest of the team to realize that vision.”
Almost a decade after it merged with Time Warner, AOL is battling to get over with numerous problems, including slumping revenue, low team spirit after several rounds of layoffs and corporate infighting with its parent. Time Warner has said it plans to spin off AOL into an independent company by the end of the year.
Armstrong, who took the helm at AOL in April, identified Communications as one of the five key areas of strategic focus for AOL after an extensive 100-day review of the company’s business. Other focus areas include Content, Advertising, Local & Mapping and AOL Ventures.
Analysts say that Armstrong, a well-regarded sales executive that Time Warner lured away from Google in April, is fighting to save the company from irrelevance in an industry dominated by giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook. He has recruited other top executives from Google and elsewhere and laid out a plan to focus on a handful of top priorities, including becoming a leader in display advertising and a top online destination for original content.
In an interview on Monday, Armstrong asserted that communications products, which include e-mail and instant-messaging services, remained one of AOL’s most important assets, keeping customers engaged and helping drive traffic to other AOL properties. But in that area too, AOL faces challenges. Its e-mail service was recently overtaken by Google’s Gmail, which became the No. 3 e-mail service in the United States, behind Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, owned by Microsoft.
Prior to Yahoo!, Garlinghouse was CEO of Dialpad.com Inc., responsible for all aspects of the company’s operations, finance, sales and marketing. He was also General Partner at @Ventures, Category Manager of Media Development for the @Home Network, Inc., and Manager at SBC Communications.
Garlinghouse, 38, received his BA in economics from the University of Kansas and his MBA from Harvard Business School.