AllThingsD » Gregory Coleman

Wenda Speaks

Kara Swisher — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:57:52 +0000

My post yesterday about the treatment of former Yahoo sales chief Wenda Harris Millard as she left the company certainly resulted in a spate of calls to me from Yahoos past and present.

That included Millard herself, who called me back this morning from New York to talk about her leaving the company for another high-profile job as president of media at Martha Stewart Omnimedia.

Her quick exit last weekend caused Yahoo to lash back at her in a press release, essentially suggesting she was not qualified for her Yahoo duties anymore.

It’s one thing to think Millard was not quite right for the new challenges Yahoo faces in the ad business and a need to focus more on technical solutions, which she even seems to agree with, but it’s another thing to publicly give her a hard time for it.

In any case, the encounter ripped back the curtains on executive infighting at Yahoo, which is in the midst of some wrenching changes.

“I am very disturbed that Yahoo chose to turn my resignation into something that it was not,” said Millard. “I feel very sorry for Yahoo these days.”

Well, who doesn’t, given all the focus on its management turmoil and wobbly vision of late at the Web giant, capped last week by the news that CEO Terry Semel was giving up his job to Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang?

Millard attributed the behavior toward her to the intense pressure top executives are feeling because of relentlessly bad headlines, and especially because of the even worse news about the business.

The company has been buffeted by competition from Google in the search ad arena and more recently has seen a hit in its graphical display ad business.

Even Yahoo sources hostile to Millard, an experienced online ad exec, said she deserves credit for revitalizing its ability to sell to major-brand advertisers when she came on in 2001.

But they also said she was probably about to get the lion’s share of the blame for an expected falloff in graphical ad sales at Yahoo in its upcoming quarterly report.

That’s an area Millard was in charge of, and she acknowledged that the company needed to overhaul the way it sold advertising.

She said she was, in fact, part of the integration that has been going on for over a year about how to bring all ad sales together to sell in a more efficient manner.

As part of those changes, she said she was, in fact, open to the idea that she would take over international ad sales. “I had done the U.S. for six years and I thought it might be interesting,” she said.

Yahoo sources tell a different version, of course, claiming that Millard had become uncooperative over the last year and resistant to the changes being made, especially the new focus on “performance” advertising rather than brand ads that she preferred.

“Wenda really excelled in the branded ad business, where it is all about the emotional links people have to products,” said one exec at Yahoo. “But this was an environment where now it was all about measurement of ad results, and she resisted.”

Noting that executives at Yahoo always debate alternatives and that she did not always agree with every direction chosen, Millard scoffed at the characterization that she had become obstructive.

And she denied especially one particular story Yahoo sources related to me as an example of her difficulty: That she got into an ugly public fight at a recent ad confab in Cannes with the man who took over for her.

That would be David Karnstedt, pictured here, who is now the head of Yahoo’s now-coordinated North American advertising sales and who used to be in charge of just the U.S. search ad sales.

“Don’t you think that would be in the papers given all the focus on Yahoo?” said Millard. “It’s just silly.”

Millard said that she was simply approached by MSLO CEO Susan Lyne about coming to the media company many months ago. More recently, she thought it was a better move than the international job at Yahoo.

Lyne backed Millard on this timeline and said in an email that she tried to work with Yahoo to coordinate the announcement, to no avail.

Both she and Millard were then stunned to read a remarkably sour-grapes quote in a press release attributed to Gregory Coleman, the executive vice president of global sales.

“While Wenda was a big contributor to our success in the past, the industry has shifted and requires a different set of skills to take the business forward,” he said.

That seems to translate into: She can’t get on board with this newfangled ad business.

That contention seems patently questionable and makes an old pro like Millard seem bizarrely stubborn.

While intense data focus in the ad business is clearly not Millard’s forte (but it is Karnstedt’s), to contend that all her skills were now obsolete seemed odd, too.

In any case, MSLO thinks she has what it takes, putting her in charge of a number of businesses, including online, publishing, TV and radio.

And so did many ad players who contacted me yesterday. “She is a star,” said one person, who was a longtime rival of Millard’s at another big online company. “And worse for Yahoo is that advertisers love her, so this makes them look really petty.”

Millard said she feels blindsided, noting that she did not think her relationships at Yahoo had become that frayed.

“I always had great relationships there and had six great years there,” she said. “So I am stunned.”

I am hoping to talk to both Coleman and Karnstedt today about all this–they are at another Yahoo ad confab in Long Island, where they are trying to figure out ways to get the company’s ad business back on track.

And that’s a big enough issue to deal with without all this self-inflicted noise.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Wenda Was Robbed

Kara Swisher — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 11:53:55 +0000

When I wrote that Wenda Harris Millard had better watch her back last week, in this post I did about my educated guesses about further executive departures at Yahoo, I had no idea that the struggling company was that quick about anything.

In fact, the longtime ad sales chief was out by this weekend, moving on to another job at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia as its president of media.

But I did have an idea about how cloddishly that Yahoo could handle Millard’s departure, in a vain attempt to make it look like they are on the ball in a time of management turmoil that seems only to roil and boil more as time goes on. The decimation of executive ranks there is like watching an online version of “Ten Little Indians,” or for you kids, “Hostel.”

And when you badly treat an employee who has worked pretty hard over the years for you as Yahoo did Millard, you have to wonder how in the world the company is going to attract top talent from the outside–let alone keep those valuable employees on the inside from bolting.

But Millard’s departure–which seems to be a case of her looking for and getting another job, all while Yahoo was also rejiggering its approach to ad sales–was handled with no grace and much confusion.

And that’s just about how the company handled the departure of CEO Terry Semel last week and its reorganization before that. While one longs for some clarity from a company just bursting with amazing assets, all you get is an endless game of management musical chairs, with all the same players.

Let’s review this mess. According to this report in The Wall Street Journal, MSLO CEO Susan Lyne had been recruiting the 52-year-old Harris since the beginning of 2007. I know Lyne, and she is about as straight a shooter as it gets, so I am going with her version.

But Millard, an experienced online ad exec who really should get big credit for revitalizing Yahoo’s ability to sell to major-brand advertisers when she came on in 2001, was also probably about to get the lion’s share of the blame for an expected falloff in graphical ad sales at Yahoo in its upcoming quarterly report.

That’s really bad news, since it was formerly the one business Yahoo has excelled in, as Google has bested it in the search ad business. Thus, the rumors that Millard was first going to be offered a job she would never accept, running international sales.

It’s a goofy tactic Yahoo also used in the case of Hollywood veteran Lloyd Braun, by the way, instead of just being honest about parting ways with him after his job as head of its entertainment initiatives did not gel.

And so, the lack of thanks and finger-pointing was barely concealed in the obtuse quote from the press release attributed to Gregory Coleman, the executive vice president of global sales (who, I also said in last week’s post, should wonder when the next shop would drop).

“While Wenda was a big contributor to our success in the past, the industry has shifted and requires a different set of skills to take the business forward,” he said. “We appreciate her dedication during her years of service and wish her well in the next chapter of her career.”

Apparently, the Yahoo equivalent of saying: Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Millard, no shrinking type herself in any of my encounters with her, fired right back in the Journal story: “I feel badly that Yahoo has had such a tough time lately, and I’m sorry they announced the story this way because clearly I resigned and I have a great new job.”

Indeed, while it is not as vast as Yahoo, at MSLO she will oversee a broad swath of businesses, including online, publishing, TV and radio. (Plus: Martha!)

At Yahoo meanwhile, David Karnstedt, 41, is now the head of its North American advertising sales, consolidating both Web-search ads and display ads (and it’s about time, I say). Pictured here, he used to be in charge of just the U.S. search ad sales.

I have emails into both Yahoo and Millard, and will report more as I find out more.

But, until then, the new Yahoo motto might be: Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

And now, I have to predict, that means all of you.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Next Yahoo Executive Shoe–of Many–to Fall?

Kara Swisher — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 07:53:14 +0000

While it’s corporate sport to focus on the ins and outs of the departure of Terry Semel–was he pushed or did he motor out of Yahoo on his own or, the truth, a little of both?–it’s probably a better idea to look at what will come in the days ahead for Yahoo’s ranks.

Sources tell me that now that Sue Decker has ascended to president from running the Advertiser and Publisher Group, that job, as well as the never-filled Audience Group one (announced by Semel in the last reorg in December), will no longer exist. As in, poof, gone!

Executives under those umbrellas will apparently report up through current ranks to Decker.

That is, except the job of tech head–recently vacated by Farzad Nazem and taken over on an interim basis by new CEO and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang–which will report directly to Yang. That’s right, for now, Yang will report to Yang.

But what else? First, I would expect there to be more executive departures.

With the drop-off in the display ad business, for example, one wonders if current Chief Sales Officer Wenda Harris Millard is going to be feeling the pressure from on high. Pictured here, she joined Yahoo around the time Semel got there, bringing a lot of advertising experience to the then-flimsy ad efforts.

While she definitely raised the game at Yahoo, results are results. Also vulnerable is Gregory Coleman, Yahoo’s executive vice president of global sales.

And, it is important to underscore the need to raise morale at Yahoo and attract dynamic new employees. The mood at the company has been, shall we say, glum, and that falls in the purview of Libby Sartain, Chief People Yahoo, an annoyingly cute way of saying she runs human resources. (She is pictured here.)

Now, I don’t find many companies where the HR head is beloved, but Sartain does attract an unusual amount of ire from some in the company for not being as supportive as one might hope.

But the real issue won’t be those leaving with a bit of a push, but those who want to get out while the getting is good. The departure of major execs, shown here, like Marco Boerries (right), the executive vice president of the Connected Life Division, and the more high-profile Jeff Weiner (left), who is executive vice president of its Network Division, would be a blow.

While it is not likely either will bolt soon–and it is critical for Yahoo to hold onto as many top execs as they can right now–they are ripe pickings for any aggressive Internet company looking for leadership.

And what of Brad Garlinghouse, shown here, the man who seemed to set this whole conflagration, when he penned the now legendary “Peanut Butter Manifesto.”

That four-page memo struck a nerve inside and outside the company when it became public late last year, as it called for an overhaul of Yahoo management, a resetting of priorities and pointed out cleverly that the company had spread itself too thin. (Get it? Peanut butter? Spread thin?)

Given his role as the one whose recommendations have seemingly come to pass and then some (“Existing business owners must be held accountable for where we find ourselves today–heads must roll,” he wrote), it’s likely Garlinghouse’s job is pretty sticky.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.