New York — Jeff Dossett, Yahoo’s key North American executive in charge of media properties including the powerful troika (News, Sports and Finance), has resigned from Yahoo Inc, according to an internal memo on Thursday, barely eight months after joining, becoming the latest senior executive to depart as new management shakes up the Internet giant.
Dossett, who was hired by Yahoo coming from Microsoft Corp last November to replace former Yahoo media topper Scott Moore to lead their North American Audience division, has quit, North American Executive Vice President Hilary Schneider said in a memo obtained by Reuters.
Surprisingly, Scott eventually took a job at Microsoft.
It was unclear from the memo why Dossett left. But according to sources, he is leaving for personal reasons and most likely begin a startup.
Dossett did not return emails asking for comment, but Yahoo confirmed the departure to BoomTown.
In the meantime, his duties will be filled in by Jimmy Pitaro, who runs Vertical Audience Experiences for Yahoo and Tim Mayer, who is in charge of Search & Social Applications, and both report up to EVP Hilary Schneider.
“I also wanted to take this opportunity to let our colleagues up north know that we are on track with our plans to integrate Yahoo! Canada into the North America region, and I will provide an update on that front next week,” Schneider said in her brief memo.
Yahoo’s spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.
Dossett has been in charge of all of Yahoo’s media assets, including its powerful News, Sports and Finance content sites. He has been reorganizing the media unit since he took over last year, including centralizing product development.
Chief Executive Carol Bartz — who arrived in January — has unveiled a broad reorganization plan to simplify Yahoo’s management structure and reshuffle various divisions.
Just yesterday, Bartz, speaking at the D conference, described the Dilbert-like Yahoo org structure when she arrived there early this year, and has been cleaning up the reporting lines up to her. In her interview yesterday, she gave a specific example of how the Yahoo homepage team would have a tough time working with the Yahoo Finance team, and her efforts to make them work together more smoothly.
Since the reshuffling began, various executives had left the company, including then-Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen, who has since joined apparel brand Levi Strauss & Co.
At MSN, Dossett was responsible for audience, content and programming strategy and execution in the U.S.
He had worked at the company since 1991, in a variety of sales and marketing jobs in Canada, and later worked on strategy and business development for MSN.
Dossett was also CEO of Carpoint, now MSN Autos, and was GM of its real estate arm.
He also took two years off from Microsoft in 2002 to climb the highest mountains on each of the seven continents, finally reaching the summit of Mount Everest in May of 2004.