• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, April 16, 2012

Yahoo said Monday that former PayPal executive Sam Shrauger and current Yahoo executive Mollie Spillman will lead the new commerce unit created as part of the company’s wider reorganization plan laid out last week. The commerce group is one of three areas that falls under the newly created consumer division that also includes media and connections.

Sam Shrauger, most recently VP of global product and customer experience organization at PayPal, while Spillman previously led marketing for Yahoo's Americas region. She has also worked in media and advertising for companies including AOL, Time Warner and Meredith Corporation.

Shrauger is the first former PayPal colleague Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson has tapped for a high-level management position at the struggling Web portal. Before joining Yahoo in September, Thompson served as PayPal president. In the announcement, Shrauger was described as instrumental in building the company’s merchant services business and developing products for its recent push into offline retail payments.

"Under their leadership, both consumers and advertisers will benefit from Yahoo's ability to close the loop between consumer interests and advertising spend - ultimately redefining consumer shopping, buying and payments in ways that only Yahoo can,” said Thompson, in a statement.

The new Yahoo chief executive has emphasized using data mined from the company’s 700 million-strong audience to build up its advertising and e-commerce offerings. The hiring of Shrauger to help lead that effort on the commerce side follows both the management restructuring and layoffs of 2,000 at Yahoo announced this month.

Yahoo will report first quarter earnings Tuesday.