Kenny Steps Down At Akamai For 'Emerging' Opportunity, Still Seen As Yahoo Candiate

Former Publicis digital chief David Kenny has stepped down as president of cloud computing giant Akamai, fueling renewed speculation that he may be a prime candidate to take the helm of Yahoo.

As part of an earnings statement released late Wednesday, Akamai said Kenny had stepped down as president, and issued a personal statement from him saying, “I now want to return to my first passion of pursuing emerging opportunities on the consumer Internet.”

While Yahoo is far from an emerging Internet player, Kenny, who has been a Yahoo board member since April, has also been seen as a potential candidate to fill the CEO role ever since Carol Bartz was ousted.

Yahoo has been rife with speculation and in the process of a strategic review, and a number of outside players are believed to be eying a takeover bid, including Google and several private equity firms.

Prior to joining Akamai, Kenny was co-managing director of Publicis’ VivaKi and was generally considered to be a potential candidate to succeed Maurice Levy as CEO of the agency holding company. He was CEO of Digitas before that, and oversaw its sale and integration into Publicis.

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