Sunnyvale, California — Web portal Yahoo, which recently lost some of its key officials, and CEO Carol Bartz is encountering what may be the toughest challenge during her tenure since she took charge of Yahoo almost two years ago. The struggling search engine company late last week confirmed the departure of three senior-most executives, including U.S. head Hilary Schneider, the latest in a string of high-level departures at the Web portal.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Yahoo mentioned that Executive Vice President of the American region Hilary Schneider will be “depart Yahoo after a transition period”.
The company, however, did not specify any rational motive for her departure in the filing. In a separate announcement, Yahoo confirmed that she is accompanied by two of her deputies:
Senior Vice President for Audience, Mobile and Local, North America “David Ko,” and Vice President of Media “Jimmy Pitrao” would also be leaving the Sunnyvale, California-based firm.
They were the latest in a wave of departures at Yahoo, which has striving in recent years to keep pace amid slow growth, dull stock performance and tough competition from rivals like Google and Facebook. The departures raises concerns about Yahoo’s efforts to revive its revenue growth and its popularity among Web surfers, nearly two years after CEO Carol Bartz took the helm, said analysts.
Yahoo said it is searching to replace Schneider, who was in-charge of business partnerships and advertising sales in America, by the end of the year and that Schneider will stay on to help with the transition.
“Hilary Schneider has played a major role at Yahoo in driving the company’s strategies for content, online advertising and more,” the company said in a statement.
“David Ko and Jimmy Pitaro have both made immeasurable contributions to Yahoo and have helped transform the company’s mobile and content strategies in a constantly evolving business environment. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors,” the California-based firm said.
Raymond Stern, the company’s Head of Business Development and Partnerships will take up responsibility for Ko’s teams and duties.
Yahoo’s Chief Executive Carol Bartz said the three executives were quitting for “different reasons that suit their life. So everyone stay calm — we have a good plan in place. In fact, I’m more charged up than ever and can roll with the punches. Yahoo! is a great place,” Bartz said.
Bartz, has lately been attempting to rejuvenate her company by cutting costs, including outsourcing a number of Yahoo’s services to companies like Microsoft, which has taken over Yahoo’s search engine. But the efforts have yet to restore much luster to the one-time Internet phenomenon.
For this reason, many executive ranks at Yahoo have experienced disruption in recent months, with many leaving across virtually all functions of the company. For instance, David Ku, a veteran advertising executive, said he was leaving a few weeks ago.
Also, Ms. Schneider had planned to leave last year, hence her departure was not a surprise, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on the record. The source said Ms. Schneider differed with Ms. Bartz over the company’s strategic direction.
Pitaro is leaving for another company while Ko may have lost out in a power struggle with Yahoo!’s new chief product officer Blake Irving, it said.
The Internet pioneer is facing increasing competition from social networking services like Facebook, which are attracting greater numbers of online visitors and advertisers.
Shares of Yahoo, which are down 16.4 percent this year, were unchanged in extended trading on Thursday at $14.17. News of the departures was first reported on Wednesday by the technology blog AllThingsD.