Sunnyvale, California — Another longtime Yahoo executive “Tapan Bhat,” who has been with Yahoo for more than five and who has extensively managed the Internet giant’s most important homepage, late last week announced that he is quitting the company, according to an All Things Digital report.
The news of the departure was communicated through an internal email from new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, under the email titled “Busy Week” at the company’s investor day that took place yesterday, informing that Bhat – who held two titles during his tenure “Senior Vice President, Integrated Consumer Experience” and “Senior Vice President, Front Doors, Community and Network Services” “ will depart.
“Tapan Bhat, SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, has decided to leave from Yahoo!. Bhat has been an integral leader within the Products organization since joining Yahoo! more than five years ago and we appreciate his many contributions and wish him well. His last day will be June 15,” said Yahoo in a press release.
As you might recollect from the names of those positions, Bhat has been an important player at Yahoo. The Yahoo homepage and My Yahoo were in fact both under his supervision, along with other projects like Yahoo’s Buzz, Glue, Toolbar, and some mobile apps.
According to All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher, who was the first to unearth and reveal Bhat’s heading for the door, is absolutely convinced that Yahoo does not have an everlasting replacement lined up, either.
At the bottom of the memo was a paragraph noting that “there is always a downside to a productive week,” Irving said and that Bhat had decided to leave the company.
For the time being, Jeff Kinder, Senior Vice President of Media Products at Yahoo, will act as a substitute for Bhat, according to Swisher. It is not clear what Bhat holds for his future plans.
Bhat was responsible for a range of products at Yahoo, most especially, the most recent redesign of its powerful homepage a year ago. He is the most recent to join a number of top executives who have recently resigned from Yahoo of late, such as U.S. advertising head Joanne Bradford.
And A Word From Bhat:
“Leaving Yahoo! has been a difficult decision to make because I’m incredibly proud of the work that has been accomplished by my teams over the last five years, particularly related to the Yahoo! homepage, My Yahoo!, our content optimization engine and most recently, our Mobile and iPad apps. I’m looking forward to new challenges that lie ahead and am confident that I’m leaving Yahoo! on the right path, and with the right leadership in place.”
According to some sources inside and outside of Yahoo, Bhat has clashed with CEO Carol Bartz at times and has long been considering a new move.