The new NBC Universal/News Corp. online video venture, CNET, LinkedIn and Microsoft all made major personnel announcements on Thursday--hiring key executives away from Amazon, Time Warner, Yahoo and
Prudential, respectively:
News Corp. and NBC Universal appointed Jason Kilar to be chief executive officer of the two companies' still-unnamed online video joint venture. Kilar,
most recently senior vice president of worldwide application software for Amazon, will join the new company on July 9. During 10 years at Amazon, Kilar also served as vice president and general
manager of Amazon's North American media businesses, including the company's books, music, video, and DVD categories. Before that, he helped expand Amazon's core business beyond its original books
category, writing the business plan for Amazon's entry into the video and DVD businesses, and then led that unit as general manager and vice president. CNET Networks, Inc. hired Jack Haire as
special advisor to the CEO (Neil Ashe), charged with increasing CNET Networks' visibility among a broader set of advertisers and agencies. Haire, who will be based in New York, was formerly executive
vice president with Time Inc.'s corporate sales and marketing division, and chaired the Time Warner Advertising Council, which was responsible for the development and sale of the company's largest
advertising contracts. With Time Inc. for 25 years, Haire has also served as publisher of Time magazine and president of the Fortune/Money Group. He also partnered with CNN on the launch of
CNNMoney.com. Professional social network LinkedIn named Patrick Crane as vice president of marketing. Crane was formerly vice president of marketing for Yahoo Inc. Network Division, where he
launched Yahoo Answers in 2005. He also led the marketing of Yahoo Mail, helping it become the world's #1 Web mail provider in 2006 as measured by comScore. Microsoft appointed Katherine
Styponias as general manager of its Media & Entertainment Group, where she will lead the business development team working with major content suppliers. Styponias was formerly with Prudential Equity
Group as senior vice president and senior cable, entertainment and satellite equity analyst. She has relocated from New York to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash.