Executive Turnover Continues At Yahoo

Ari Balogh

High-level executives keep heading out of Yahoo. The announcement Thursday that Ari Balogh, the company's CTO and chief product officer, would leave Yahoo for personal reasons in June follows only a month after the departures of veteran tech executive Ash Patel and Joanna Bradford, head of U.S. ad sales.

Patel said he wouldn't return from a sabbatical while Bradford left to join Demand Media as chief revenue officer.

Yahoo is no stranger to turnover, having seen hundreds of senior managers exit the Web portal over the last couple of years amid the turmoil surrounding the failed Microsoft takeover attempt and subsequent restructuring after Carol Bartz became chief executive early last year. But with the corporate ranks stabilizing since then under the new CEO, the talent drain from Yahoo was supposed to stop.

In a new research note, Ben Schachter, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech, says Balogh's departure -- while for personal reasons -- is especially damaging to the company. "At Yahoo, Balogh was driving product initiatives and restructuring Yahoo's infrastructure. He was instrumental in the potential turnaround at Yahoo and a key lieutenant for CEO Carol Bartz. His loss is a negative for Yahoo," wrote Schachter.

His report continues: "Combine Balogh's departure with the recent loss of ad sales exec Joanne Bradford and the many other employee exits over past year and it is hard not to be concerned. High turnover throughout the organization will only make Yahoo's turn-around more challenging, in our view."

The Business Insider's Henry Blodget yesterday had a different take on Balogh's departure, calling it a "big opportunity" for Yahoo. Why? "Because Yahoo has one of the least innovative, most bureaucratic, and, in some cases, most dysfunctional technology/product/content organizations in the industry. And this is its chance to change that," he wrote.

He added that Yahoo can now bring in someone who can oversee the melding of technology and content into a seamless whole instead of treating the two aspects of product development as separate businesses. In a seeming attempt to merge those two disciplines more closely, Balogh last year had been given oversight of products as well as technology.

Speculation has been that Balogh will be replaced by former Microsoft executive Irving Blake, who had been a corporate vice president in charge of MSFT's Windows Live Platform group before leaving the company in 2007. For their part, investors did not appear rattled by Balogh's departure, with Yahoo's stock price up more than $1 this week to about $17.50.

1 comment about "Executive Turnover Continues At Yahoo".
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  1. Jonathan Mirow from BroadbandVideo, Inc., April 12, 2010 at 11:57 a.m.

    "...the least innovative, most bureaucratic..." Most great technology companies are started by a few dedicated people with a great idea. Once they reach this stage, all hope is lost. "Personal reasons" read: I've made enough money off this. I don't have to sit in meetings anymore.

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