Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Exclusive: Yahoo Email Confirms Exec Departures With an Internal Memo From Bartz's “Foxhole” (Plus 8-K!)

Finally, a funny from Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, confirming what BoomTown reported yesterday about the departures of three top execs in an email memo to the company’s employees worldwide.

It just went out and began: “Carol from the foxhole here.”

Actually, she’s in Georgia. In the memo, Bartz said she expects to announce the new head of the Americas region for Yahoo (YHOO) to replace outgoing chief Hilary Schneider before the end of the year.

The company also released a similar statement, which is below, adding that Raymond Stern, Yahoo SVP of North America partnerships and business development, will take over for another outgoing exec, Audience head David Ko.

(Yahoo VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro was the third in the sweep of execs.)

And you can see Yahoo’s just-filed 8-K here on Schneider, because a departure of such a top exec requires regulatory notification. It is also embedded below.

(By the way, they are not rumors if they are true. Don’t drop-kick me to f***ing Mars for saying so, Carol!)

Here’s the full memo from the All Things Digital Bartz-fortified bunker, just in case, signing out:

Yahoos,

Carol from the foxhole here. No, actually I’m in Atlanta to give a speech later tonight, and doing some client meetings.

But I’m sure you’ve seen the rumors about Hilary Schneider, David Ko, and Jimmy Pitaro leaving. Yes, they’re leaving, but each for different reasons that suit their life–and Hilary will send a separate note to her team with more about the Americas org. later today.

After nearly four years with Yahoo!, Hilary has decided to move on to the next phase in her career. Hilary has played a major role at Yahoo! in driving our strategies for content, online advertising and more. I want to thank her for her contributions over the years, and wish her the best as she moves on.

We expect to announce the new head of the Americas region before the end of the year. There is a lot of interest in joining our team for such a key position and, in the meantime, Hilary will stay on to help with the transition.

Now, you all know we’ve been intensely focused on improving our operations and top line growth. And we’ve seen good progress. But there’s a lot more to do, and as we transition to a new leader for the Americas we’re taking this opportunity to double down on these efforts. Hilary’s successor will clearly be maniacally focused on growing our top line in the region.

So everyone stay calm–we have a good plan in place. In fact, I’m more fired up than ever and can roll with the punches. Yahoo! is a great place.

Carol

And here is the official statement from Yahoo:

Yahoo! today announced the departures of Hilary Schneider, Yahoo!’s EVP Americas Region; David Ko, SVP Audience, Mobile and Local, North America; and Jimmy Pitaro, Vice President of Media. Yahoo! continues to be committed to delivering the best digital experiences to consumers, leadership to advertisers and amazing scale and reach to partners.

Hilary Schneider has played a major role at Yahoo! in driving the company’s strategies for content, online advertising and more. David Ko and Jimmy Pitaro have both made countless contributions to Yahoo! and have helped transform the company’s mobile and content strategies in a constantly evolving business environment. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

Raymond Stern will assume responsibility for David Ko’s teams and duties. The company is seeking a new head of the Americas region and expects to make that announcement before the end of the year. Schneider will stay on to help with the transition.

And here is the 8-K:


Current Report on Form 8-K.html


comments so far. Add yours.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_ESFBA3ANKOVRKXKIMC72SMLTDY Nadia Files

    why carol told off mike arrington of techcrunch (part of aol)

    mike arrington is an arrogant mean guy

    he has a real (let me say that again… real) attitude problem

    last weekend i watched him get nasty with the young and friendly founder of groupon. the kid said nothing to mike to provoke this action.
    hearing arrington say what he did made me mad. i would have said curses to him too. the kid shook his head and took it pretty good but u could see he was shocked to be bullied by a tech reporter.

    i am proud carol didnt take arrington’s nasty
    bullshit. no tech reporter should intimidate a business leader.

    the double standard here is that nobody calls arrington a bastard — in reality many do — but usually not in public.

    i love u carol bartz. we are gonna win this one.

    $20 is coming.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WVLZEGBQJ3M33KUQ4IKUWPRZAI Biddafd Ddkdk

    mike deserves to be told off:

    siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2009/08/arrington_loses.php

  • Anonymous

    OK this makes a lot of sense dude. Good stuff.

    http://www.complete-privacy.es.tc

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OK42M52VJS2OAKNLPPQJ2YRJLU Tweedle

    At least Carol can use caps and punctuation properly. That’s something.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5TJB2EAI3XTSDFGFZ54BTQMAMU Sale

    businessinsider.com/aol-strategy-2010-9

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5TJB2EAI3XTSDFGFZ54BTQMAMU Sale

    henry blodget just trashed AOL for being worst than YAHOO
    is the great TIM ARMSTRONG no better than Carol Bartz — at least in the eyes of allthingsd?

    what does allthingsd think of AOL ?
    see henry’s businessinsider site today

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_SOSBVJUBBLX2FPW3GS7FXZC3LQ Future Shop

    IT TOOK LOU GERSTNER MANY YEARS TO FIX IBM.
    DO YOU THINK ITS REASONABLE TO ASSUME BARTZ CAN FIX YAHOO FASTER? I KNOW I COULDNT. I KNOW ITS UNREASONABLE TO EXPECT IT TOO. BARTZ HAS DONE MANY GREAT THINGS AT YAHOO AS OTHER ARTICLES HAVE STATED. NET INCOME IS DOUBLING UNDER BARTZ. PRETTY GOOD START SAY SOME.

  • http://allthingsd.com/boomtown Kara Swisher

    I miss that punctuation. If only to mock.

  • http://allthingsd.com/boomtown Kara Swisher

    I saw. Did say AOL is a mess. Tim inherited it, but it’s his baby now. But Yahoo has much better and reallty powwerful assets, while Tim has a lot of weak stuff to work from. He is trying but there is only so much lipstick you can put on a pig.

  • http://allthingsd.com/boomtown Kara Swisher

    To be fair to Arrington, she cursed me out too, in an interview at our D conference a year earlier. The cursing is a bit much, at this point.

  • http://allthingsd.com/boomtown Kara Swisher

    BTW, you are dead wrong that Henry trashed AOL in this piece. It was balanced analysis, which concluded, in part: Bottom line, we like that AOL’s back out there.

  • http://twitter.com/matrix_cal shailesh mishra

    your’s was a girlie thing. A friendly cursing. did something wrong happen between you two ? You used to quite pro Y! but now a days, you are quite opposite.

  • http://twitter.com/VCShekhar Chandra Vattikuti

    Hi kara,

    the Snarkiness in the post is unwarranted and uncalled for. From what little i know about you, you have never run a large company (revenue > 500 mill $) and i am doubtful if you have ever had to run even a small business unit.

    At large companies its fairly common for each new top level hire to bring in place their own processes, their own notions of what will work and what won’t. As an outcome of that, it is fairly normal for the new management team to get on board the folks that they are comfortable with, have some sort of buyin into the thinking of the new hire. Hence the notion that Blake is getting all his Stooges into the company.

    With a company like Yahoo!, Change is going to be slow, painful and is going to take a few careers down with it. People will come, people will leave and people will be left with not so significant roles and hence decide that it does not meet their professional needs.

    When you have run your own business unit or startup and think that you understand how change is difficult to articulate, sell and drive to an organization that is 15000 strong, whilst ensuring that the dough comes in every day, you would have become a better journalist.

    Till then, hope you retain your snarkiness when it is called for and stick to facts and put things in context when it is called for.

    journalistic credibility is difficult to build, easy to loose and next to impossible to get back. God speed for your reporting.

    a reader who is getting bored with your Snarkiness

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