San Francisco — Yahoo Inc., owner of the second most popular U.S. Internet search site, on Monday said that it has hired former Microsoft Corp. executive Jeff Dossett to run the Internet giant’s news and entertainment sites in the United States. And as it seemed that the great Yahoo exodus had finally ended, Scott Moore, head of Yahoo!’s media business, and Al Warms, general manager of Yahoo! News, will be announcing their departures later this week, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation confirm that report at AllThingsDigital.com, a Wall Street Journal affiliate.
Dossett, Yahoo’s new senior vice president, U.S. Audience, will be responsible for continuing Yahoo’s success in delivering large audiences during a prolonged rocky period at the company, while also facing a Web universe that is gradually becoming less portal-centric.
Dossett will report to Hilary Schneider, the executive vice president of U.S. operations, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said today in a statement. “Jeff is one of the country’s most experienced online media executives, and I’m confident he is well-suited to lead Yahoo’s audience business to even greater heights,” said Schneider.
While at Microsoft, Dossett worked with Joanne Bradford, who recently joined Yahoo as its top advertising sales executive in the United States.
Yahoo’s U.S. Web sites had more than 140 million visitors in September, second only to Google Inc.’s. Its Finance page is the most popular business news site in the U.S., with 20 million visitors in that month; according to research firm ComScore Inc.
Dossett replaces Scott Moore, who is leaving to pursue other opportunities, Yahoo said. Like Dossett, Moore joined Yahoo from MSN back in 2005, first as vp of content operations with the company’s media group, which was then led by former ABC executive Lloyd Braun.
Moore, who spent the past 3 1/2 years steering some of the most-read sections of Yahoo’s Web site, joins a long line of Yahoo executives who have defected during the past two years as the Sunnyvale-based company struggles to snap out of a financial funk that has hammered its stock price after takeover talks with Microsoft fell apart.
At least 1,500 Yahoo employees, or about 10 percent of the company’s work force, will be shown the door before the end of the year as part of a cost-cutting purge.
Moore’s departure would seem to be somewhat abrupt, as just last week he represented Yahoo at ContentNext Media’s Future of Business Media conference in New York. Yahoo executives were quick to praise his tenure. “I would also like to thank Scott for his leadership over the past few years,” said Schneider, in a statement. “Yahoo enjoys an extraordinary market position across nearly every category in which we compete, and Scott has been an important leader in building this success.”
Alan Warms, who came to Yahoo from its BuzzTracker acquisition last year and is head of Yahoo News, Tech and Education, is also leaving, company spokesman Brad Williams said. He will be replaced by Yahoo’s vice president of programming and development Neeraj Khemlani. The company declined to give a reason for Warms’s departure.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the WSJ said Khemlani will continue to oversee the company’s original programming efforts, which include the creation of online-only shows like Yahoo’s TechTicker.
Yahoo is struggling to compete with Google, the leader in Internet search, with profit declining in 10 of the past 11 quarters.
At MSN, Dossett similarly headed the company’s audience and programming efforts in various roles since 2000. During his tenure, he held leadership positions for MSN Autos and MSN HomeAdvisor, among other segments.