According to sources, Robin Domeniconi (pictured here), Microsoft’s VP for U.S. Advertising Sales, Publishing and Marketing, will be leaving the company.

While Domeniconi is leaving, sources said Microsoft (MSFT) is close to hiring Carolyn Everson of MTV Networks to head up its online ad sales force globally.

While the deal is not done, Microsoft has been looking to fill the key slot for more than a year.

Everson (pictured here) is currently EVP of Strategy and Operations for the MTV Networks U.S. ad sales department.

Interestingly, sources also said Everson was also on the list of candidates Yahoo (YHOO) is still perusing to fill the key U.S. ad sales jobs after Joanne Bradford departed recently for Demand Media.

Domeniconi, a former Time Inc. exec, who came to Microsoft in 2008, announced her departure on Wednesday, said insiders.

She has been in charge of executing sales and marketing strategies for Microsoft’s media properties, including MSN, Windows Live, Xbox Live and Bing.

A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.

Another longtime Yahoo exec is departing–this time Tapan Bhat (pictured here), who had purview over the Internet giant’s important front page.

News of the departure came from new Chief Product Officer Blake Irving in an internal email titled “Busy Week” that highlighted the Yahoo (YHOO) investor day that took place yesterday.

Buried at the end of the memo was a paragraph noting that “there’s always a downside to a productive week” and that Bhat had decided to leave the company.

Bhat’s team will report to Yahoo exec Jeff Kinder until a replacement is found. It is not clear what Bhat’s plans are.

Bhat joins a number of top execs who have recently clocked out of Yahoo of late, such as U.S. advertising head Joanne Bradford.

Bhat was in charge of a range of products at Yahoo, most importantly, the most recent redesign of its powerful homepage a year ago.

Yahoo has since confirmed the departure.

“Tapan Bhat, SVP, Integrated Consumer Experiences, has decided to leave Yahoo!. Tapan has been an integral leader within the Products organization since joining Yahoo! more than five years ago and we value his many contributions and wish him well. His last day will be June 15.”

And from Bhat:

“Leaving Yahoo! has been a difficult decision to make because I’m incredibly proud of the work that’s been accomplished by my teams over the last five years, particularly related to the Yahoo! homepage, My Yahoo!, our content optimization engine and most recently, our Mobile and iPad apps. I’m looking forward to new challenges that lie ahead and am confident that I’m leaving Yahoo! on the right path, and with the right leadership in place.”

According to some sources inside and outside of Yahoo, Bhat has clashed with CEO Carol Bartz at times and has long been considering a new move.

Earlier this week, Yahoo acquired social content start-up Associated Content for $90 million.

While founder Luke Beatty was prominently presented by Yahoo (YHOO) as the face of the deal, CEO Patrick Keane, pictured here, was oddly missing from most of the PR around the media-focused acquisition.

The reason, according to several sources at Yahoo: Yahoo’s top execs have not yet persuaded Keane to stay after the purchase is complete.

It’s not for lack of trying. Yahoo execs–such as CEO Carol Bartz and even co-founder Jerry Yang–have been trying to get Keane signed up, a move made more difficult since Keane got a big slug of cash in the payout of the deal.

One issue: What job would Keane get? One possibility among many is head of U.S. advertising sales, which was recently vacated by Joanne Bradford.

But sources close to the situation said Yahoo execs are also offering Keane the option of choosing his job.

That’s because he has substantially more consumer Internet experience than most of Bartz’s recent hires, many of whom have worked in the enterprise arena.

Bradford left abruptly in March for Associated Content competitor Demand Media, leaving her key job open. Yahoo hired Spencer Stuart’s Jim Citrin to conduct a search.

Keane certainly fits the sales bill, from his years as head of sales strategy at Google (GOOG) and CMO of the interactive unit of CBS (CBS).

Keane would clearly be a pick with more of a strategy bent than others whom Yahoo is aiming at, who are more plain-vanilla online ad sales execs.

Yahoo, in a clear attempt to get deep into the social content space and better compete with both AOL and Demand Media, announced the acquisition of Associated Content.

Sources close to the situation said the price was $90 million in cash, which is a solid outcome for Associated Content, a start-up that found itself in an increasingly crowded space for cheaper content.

There are no earn-outs and no restrictions, sources added.

Yahoo (YHOO) declined to provide the financial terms of the deal and said it expected to complete this acquisition in the third quarter of 2010.

In the deal, which the pair have been talking about for some time, the code name for the New York- and Denver-based company was Atlantic.

And, indeed, Yahoo is aiming to garner a massive sea of content by buying the company, which said it has 380,000 contributors and many millions of pieces of content.

It has about 16 million unique monthly visitors, according to recent surveys, and has signed several distribution deals with major media partners.

“This is really about our commitment to providing high-quality content that is relevant to users and also advertisers,” said David Ko, who heads Yahoo’s media efforts, in an interview with BoomTown just before the deal was announced.

For Associated, said founder Luke Beatty, it was a need to get access to Yahoo’s huge pool of consumers for its content, provided by armies of freelancers. It was founded in 2004, he noted, with the tagline: “The People’s Media Company.”

“We invented the category, thinking about this idea that there should be a democratization of content,” he said. “Being part of Yahoo increases our scale to a completely different level.”

Ko said Associated Content was “far superior than any competitor.”

It was a sentiment countered by Demand CEO and co-founder Richard Rosenblatt:

“The fact that Yahoo–which has historically sourced content from storied brands like Reuters, Associated Press and entertainment deals with Hollywood–is now ready to bring user-generated content to its advertisers is fascinating,” he wrote in an email to me. “Demand Media’s approach is certainly different than either AC, Yahoo or the combination. We think that our approach is differentiated due to our large professional content creator network, rigorous editorial processes, strong technologies and algorithms and distribution on a combination of owned and partner sites.”

Yahoo’s Ko also called Associated Content a “pioneer” in the space to make bank from crowd-sourced, search-optimized content efforts for media about more mundane topics like back pain.

And, indeed, that is true.

Yet Associated Content’s efforts have been overshadowed recently by those of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Demand Media, which is heading for an IPO at a multibillion-dollar valuation, as well as AOL (AOL), which has put a lot of muscle behind both its low-cost social content at its Seed unit and higher-priced premium content efforts.

As MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka wrote:

“Associated Content looks and acts a lot like Demand Media, the Santa Monica-based “content mill” that’s drawn a lot of attention in the last year or so–though both companies bristle when you compare the two. It’s also thematically related to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong’s push to automate the production of content at that company.”

And while Beatty had said Associated Content was not for sale, many other sources inside and outside the company said it has been shopping itself for a while now, including to both Demand and AOL, in fact.

It hired Allen & Co. earlier this year, after AOL talks went nowhere.

Ironically, Armstrong was an angel investor in Associated Content, which is also backed by Canaan Partners and SoftBank Capital. It had raised a total of $21.4 million.

Another irony: In the past, Yahoo has taken a look at acquisitions of both AOL and Demand, deeming both too pricey.

In addition, the relationship between Demand and Yahoo has gotten testy of late, with Demand poaching top exec talent from Yahoo, such as U.S. ad sales head Joanne Bradford, among others.

People close to Associated Content say it’s on a $15 million run rate, up from $4 million earlier in the year.

Still, settling in at Yahoo and for a solid price is a good outcome for Associated, whose staff will now be integrated with the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

“Combining our world-class editorial team with Associated Content’s makes this a game-changer,” said Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz in a statement. “Together, we’ll create more content around what we know our users care about, and open up new and creative avenues for advertisers to engage with consumers across our network. These are important aspects of building engaging consumer experiences on Yahoo!, and one of the reasons why we’re one of the most visited destinations online.”

Here is a video that Yahoo posted on its Yodel Anecdotal blog of Beatty (good lord, you really don’t need to kiss up to your new bosses with purple socks, Luke!):

And here is the official press release from Yahoo about the deal:

Yahoo! to Acquire Associated Content

Extending leadership in content with the addition of 380,000 contributors

Sunnyvale, Calif.–May 18, 2010–Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Associated Content Inc. This strategic move extends Yahoo’s ability to provide high quality, personally relevant content for the benefit of more than 600 million users as well as tens of thousands of advertisers. As Yahoo! enhances its social, mobile, local, and media offerings, the acquisition of Associated Content reinforces the company’s longstanding promise to offer the best of the Web–by combining Associated Content’s approximately 380,000 contributors who provide rich and varied content on a broad array of passion points, with Yahoo’s leadership in partnering with established content brands and the award-winning team of editors and experts from Yahoo!.

“Combining our world-class editorial team with Associated Content’s makes this a game-changer,” said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo! Inc. “Together, we’ll create more content around what we know our users care about, and open up new and creative avenues for advertisers to engage with consumers across our network. These are important aspects of building engaging consumer experiences on Yahoo!, and one of the reasons why we’re one of the most visited destinations online.”

“The Associated Content team and our 380,000 contributors are looking forward to joining Yahoo! and to the opportunities that being part of a global Internet brand presents,” said Luke Beatty, Associated Content founder and president. “Combining our crowd sourced content with Yahoo!’s distribution, world class editorial team and online marketing leadership will accelerate our growth as we continue to leverage our best-of-breed platform to deliver high quality compelling content on more than 60,000 topics.”

For advertisers, this deal will expand Yahoo! into more topic areas and real-time content generation. The combination promises to offer advertisers even more opportunities to engage groups of passionate consumers in ways they will find uniquely appealing to their interests and tastes. Having insight into user intent through its leading search products enables Yahoo! to identify topics important to advertisers and users. Yahoo! plans to use Associated Content to create content around those topics and leverage Associated Content to contribute content to existing media properties. Associated Content also provides more opportunities for Yahoo! to partner and collaborate with publishers who can help the company shape the tremendous variety of content coming in, into something bespoke and even more engaging.

While current Associated Content content is U.S.-centric, Yahoo! expects to scale the platform globally.

Associated Content was founded by Luke Beatty in Denver, Colorado, in 2004. Associated Content receives more than 16 million unique users per month (comScore) and the editorial staff reviews more than 50,000 pieces of content per month, including articles, images, audio and video.

Yahoo! expects to complete this acquisition in the third quarter of 2010. Financial terms were not disclosed.

In March, Demand pulled off a major coup by hiring Yahoo’s head of U.S. advertising sales, Joanne Bradford.

Today, Bradford’s program manager, Sarah Northern, resigned from the Silicon Valley company and said she is heading to the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Demand.

More significantly and also today, Erika Nardini (pictured here), VP of brand packaging at Yahoo (YHOO), announced to her staff that she is leaving the company, and she is widely expected to go to Demand too.

When called by BoomTown, a Yahoo spokesman confirmed Nardini’s departure.

In a statement Yahoo said:

“Erika Nardini, VP of Yahoo! packaging group, has resigned from Yahoo!. On an interim basis, Mollie Spilman, Yahoo!’s senior vice president of B2B marketing, will assume Erika’s responsibilities and continue to run B2B marketing. Mollie will continue to drive the strong momentum we have in packaging, and how we service and deliver innovation to our customers and partners. We thank Erika for her contributions to Yahoo! and wish her success in the future.”

Nardini, who is well-liked by the sales force, was hired at Yahoo by Bradford; both are former ad execs at Microsoft (MSFT).

Sources at Yahoo said top execs are furious at what they consider a raid on talent by Demand.

But Bradford is legally disallowed to poach execs, and sources within the ranks said many were seeking the jobs without prompting.

Actually, such movement is quite typical at Internet companies, especially if a top exec like Bradford leaves. Often, many move after the initial departure and usually to the same company.

Yahoo is currently on the hunt for a replacement for Bradford, a search being led by Spencer Stuart’s Jim Citrin.

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

This seems to have been a busy week for Demand Media CEO and founder Richard Rosenblatt (pictured here), with news of a big-banker hiring in a pending IPO of his social media start-up and the possible sale of a digital marketing company where he serves as chairman.

Indeed, Demand has hired Goldman Sachs (GS) to prep its initial public offering, sources told BoomTown, which the company is expected to file in August at a valuation of about $1.5 billion.

This confirms an earlier report in the Financial Times.

The price has to be high, given that Rosenblatt has managed to raise an eye-popping $355 million from a slate of high-profile backers, including Goldman Sachs, Oak Investment Partners and well-known media investor Gordon Crawford.

Rosenblatt essentially signaled his intent to move to the public markets with the recent nabbing of high-profile advertising exec Joanne Bradford from Yahoo (YHOO).

Her job: To quickly turbocharge Demand’s business as chief revenue officer. The company now does about $250 million in annual revenue, mostly from advertising.

Rosenblatt, who was part of the team that sold MySpace to News Corp. (NWS) for $650 million, could also be about to score another big-time sale.

This time, it is digital marketing firm iCrossing, sources said, in a deal with media giant Hearst Corp., which could close in the next two weeks, if all goes well.

First reported in The Wall Street Journal, the price for the large Scottsdale, Ariz.-based firm is hovering at about $375 million.

Not coincidentally, with Rosenblatt in common, iCrossing shares investors with Demand, including Goldman Sachs and Oak.

Here’s hoping Rosenblatt will be able to talk about all this and more in an onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference this June.

He will appear in a session at D8 with former Wall Street Journal editor Paul Steiger, who is trying to save investigative journalism at a nonprofit called ProPublica.

The less lofty content created by Demand and others, such as AOL (AOL), using algorithms and other means, has attracted controversy, with worries about its impact on the traditional media business.

Yahoo said it has hired former Microsoft exec Blake Irving (pictured here) as its chief product officer.

Reporting directly to CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo (YHOO) said in a statement, Irving will “lead the company’s products organization, which is responsible for the vision, strategy, design and development of Yahoo!’s global consumer and advertiser product portfolio.”

In other words, the exec many think the company desperately needs to spur innovation.

Irving replaces Ari Balogh, who announced last week he is leaving the company as of June 3.

Balogh was also CTO, but Yahoo did not say who would get that title.

In related news, Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs as chief scientist, will now report directly to Bartz.

The Yahoo announcement confirms a post BoomTown wrote last week about the company’s effort to hire Irving, a longtime Microsoft (MSFT) exec whose last job there was corporate VP of its Windows Live Platform group.

He left the software giant several years ago to spend time with his family and had been teaching at Pepperdine University.

Irving had been at Microsoft for 15 years, always commuting to its Redmond, Wash., headquarters.

According to his Facebook page, Irving now lives in laid-back San Luis Obispo, midway between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

Sources said after time off, Irving had recently become eager to re-engage in the Internet sector.

Yahoo has long wanted to hire Irving, many said. And in nabbing him, the timing is fortuitous, as the company is in the midst of launching its massive search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft.

The hiring also stems the tide of Yahoo’s exec exodus. Balogh’s parting is one of many among top Yahoo execs recently. Ad sales head Joanne Bradford departed the company to join Demand Media, while longtime tech exec Ash Patel said he would not return from a sabbatical he took last year.

Here’s Irving’s post on his own hire on Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal blog:

Yodeling Hello to Yahoo!

As the newest Yahoo! employee, at the risk of being highly corny, I’m delighted to yodel my first purple-hued shout-out to the 600 million people and tens of thousands of advertisers and publishers who enjoy Yahoo!’s products every day.

Some of you might ask why anyone would say goodbye to surfing and cycling the Central Coast of California or travelling the globe with their family to take on the job of leading products and technology at Yahoo! My answer’s pretty easy–meet just some of the brilliant people at Yahoo! that want to change the world, and then scan the amazing list of leading products around the globe these people have delivered at scale. When I think about what this company has meant to anyone who has used the Internet, worked in the Internet industry, or wanted to reach people across the world, there is simply none better.

From wildly popular services like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, Flickr and Yahoo!’s mobile sites and apps, to Yahoo!’s best-in-class content properties like Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Sports, to many, many other great products across the world, Yahoo!’s product portfolio continues to be the envy of the industry. Those incredible services and their respective audiences bring tremendous value for advertisers, which is why Yahoo! serves up 10 billion ads across its network every day and is the #1 publisher of online display advertising. How can anyone not want to be a part of that?

And that’s just what consumers and advertisers see from the outside. Inside Yahoo!, there’s technological and scientific brilliance everywhere you look. With 500 patents, one of the world’s largest cloud computing infrastructures, and top scientific talent across computer science, machine learning, economics and social sciences, I’m awed at the caliber of people I’m going to be working with. The intellectual horsepower doesn’t stop there–I’m looking forward to working with some of the smartest and best-in-class talent around the world in marketing, advertising sales, partnerships, programming, service engineering and operations. The commitment Yahoos have shown over the years to delivering the best experience to both consumers and advertisers is one of the key things that attracted me here. We’re in the business of delivering bespoke experiences to our consumers, partners and advertisers and I’m looking forward to working with all of you to build on that reality.

This week marks an exciting new journey for me personally, and I’m thrilled to be sharing my experiences and background with the world class people at Yahoo! We have big opportunities, as well as big challenges ahead of us, and I’m getting ready to dive in and work with this great team to make Yahoo! even more central to daily online life than it has been over the past decade and a half.

My first day in the office will be May 17th and I can’t wait to get started. Stay tuned for more as I get settled and dig in with my new team.

‘Nuff said.

–By Blake Irving, Future Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!

And here’s the official press release:

Blake Irving Joins Yahoo! as Chief Product Officer

Chief Scientist Position, Held by Prabhakar Raghavan, Elevated to Report to CEO Bartz

Sunnyvale, California–April 19, 2010–Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced the appointment of Blake Irving as Chief Product Officer. In related news, Prabhakar Raghavan will continue to lead innovation efforts at Yahoo! Labs as Chief Scientist. Both Irving and Raghavan will report directly to Carol Bartz, CEO. This new leadership will focus on speeding key inputs and decision making into product strategy and direction.

Ari Balogh, current head of products and technology, will be leaving the company on June 3 for personal reasons and will work closely with Irving to ensure a smooth transition. Irving will assume the position on May 17.

“Blake brings to Yahoo! genuine large scale Internet expertise from a mature company known for world-class technology. In addition, Prabhakar has invaluable technological insights and expertise that I look forward to having my executive team hear more directly,” said Bartz. “With leaders like Blake and Prabhakar, I am confident that we will increase technological innovation and deliver against our vision to be the center of people’s online lives.”

“Yahoo! has an impressive product and technology portfolio that has provided unparalleled value to its customers at scale,” said Irving. “I look forward to working with the team to bring forward more unique and highly personal experiences to Yahoo! consumers, deliver on the company’s promise of Science, Art and Scale to Yahoo! advertisers, and develop the amazing talent at the company so we may continue to deliver more and faster innovations to the market.”

As Chief Product Officer, Irving will lead the company’s products organization, which is responsible for the vision, strategy, design and development of Yahoo!’s global consumer and advertiser product portfolio.

Irving was most recently a professor at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management in Malibu, California. In his prior role as corporate vice president of the Windows Live Platform group, Irving led a team of 4,000 to build and operate Microsoft’s Internet-scale services platform, advertiser and developer ecosystem. Irving also held a variety of development and general management positions at Microsoft.

Before joining Microsoft, Irving held development and product marketing management positions at Xerox Corp., Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. and Compaq Computer Corp. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Diego State University and a Master’s degree in business administration from Pepperdine University.

Raghavan joined Yahoo! in 2005, and serves as Chief Scientist and head of Yahoo! Labs. Raghavan’s research priorities include text and web mining, and algorithm design. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Raghavan was the chief technology officer at Verity and held a number of technical and managerial positions at IBM Research. He is a consulting professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and former editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Association of Computing Machinery. He has co-authored two textbooks on randomized algorithms and information retrieval. Raghavan received his PhD from Berkeley and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, as well as a fellow of the ACM and of the IEEE.

As BoomTown reported earlier today, Yahoo is searching for a new CTO and chief product officer. Its current exec in charge, Ari Balogh (pictured here), confirmed in an interview this afternoon that he is leaving the company.

“It’s probably bad timing, since we are in the midst of recharging Yahoo,” said Balogh. “But this had to do with personal priorities.”

By that, he was referring to personal issues in Greece, where Balogh was partially raised, related to an uncle to whom he is close. Balogh will be moving his family there this summer.

In a further complication, they cannot travel there by plane, because his daughter cannot fly due to issues around her hearing impairment.

The leading candidate for Balogh’s job at Yahoo (YHOO), said several sources, is former Microsoft (MSFT) exec Blake Irving.

Balogh would not comment on that, but noted Yahoo was looking at several candidates.

Balogh’s parting is one of many among top Yahoo execs recently, under the leadership of CEO Carol Bartz. Advertising sales head Joanne Bradford departed the company to join Demand Media, while longtime tech exec Ash Patel said he would not return from a sabbatical he took last year.

Here’s Yahoo’s official statement, for the record:

Ari Balogh, EVP, Products and CTO, has decided to leave Yahoo! for personal reasons. Ari plans to remain with the company until June 3 and will be working with the team to enable a smooth transition. We expect to name his replacement in the coming weeks. We thank him for his many contributions and wish him well.

And here is a statement from Balogh:

“While Yahoo! has become a family to me in many ways over the last two years, I have a situation with my own family that is difficult and has driven me to make some changes in my life. This job was my dream job, which makes this decision very hard. I have been working with Carol on a succession plan that we will roll out over the coming weeks. Yahoo! has many opportunities to touch so many people’s lives and the company is well positioned to take advantage of every one of them. I am confident that the incredible people at Yahoo! will deliver against our vision to be the center of people’s online lives.”

Here is a video interview I did with Balogh last July:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100408/confirmed-yahoo-cto-and-chief-product-officer-balogh-to-leave-company/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100408/exclusive-yahoo-eyes-ex-microsoft-exec-blake-irving-for-top-product-and-tech-job/ http://allthingsd.com/20100408/exclusive-yahoo-eyes-ex-microsoft-exec-blake-irving-for-top-product-and-tech-job/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:38:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=26339

According to numerous sources, Yahoo has been seriously courting former Microsoft exec Blake Irving to take over as one of its key execs, running its product organization and essentially becoming the Internet “visionary” many think the company lacks.

While it is unclear if Irving has agreed to take the job, sources said Yahoo (YHOO) management was keen on him working there.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment when BoomTown asked about its discussions with Irving about the job.

I also reached out to Irving, but he has not responded.

It’s unclear what the move means for current CTO and Chief Product Officer Ari Balogh. But sources said Balogh has been involved in the search, and was planning on taking some time off from Yahoo or even quitting soon for personal reasons.

Irving, who was well liked at Microsoft (MSFT), could certainly fill Balogh’s shoes, having run major businesses there for many years in a variety of executive jobs.

He left Microsoft in 2007, as its corporate VP for the Windows Live Platform group, after being there for 15 years to spend some time with his family in California. Irving had always commuted to Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash. headquarters.

According to his Facebook page, Irving now lives in laid-back San Luis Obispo, which is midway between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

Sources said after time off, Irving had recently become eager to reengage in the Internet sector.

Yahoo has long wanted to hire Irving, many said. And, if it did manage to nab Irving, the timing would also be fortuitous, since the company is in the midst of launching its massive search and online advertising partnership with Microsoft.

Balogh’s possible parting is one of many among top Yahoo execs recently. Ad sales head Joanne Bradford departed the company to join Demand Media, while longtime tech exec Ash Patel said he would not return from a sabbatical he took last year.

Here is Irving’s bio, from a page still up at Microsoft’s Web site:

Blake Irving left Microsoft in 2007 after 15 years with the company.

In his last role as corporate vice president of the Windows Live Platform group (WLP), Blake Irving led the effort to build and operate the most efficient, global Internet-scale services platform with the broadest and most profitable advertiser and developer ecosystem. In this capacity, Irving was responsible for driving and managing datacenter and technical operations.

Irving joined Microsoft in October 1992 and has served in a variety of development and general management positions. Irving and his teams have been responsible for Microsoft’s first Internet video conferencing and collaboration products, Internet phone, Internet mail client and instant messaging and blogging service. Irving has held development and marketing management roles on the Microsoft® Internet Explorer browser software and Windows® operating system teams.

Before joining Microsoft, Irving held development and marketing management positions at Xerox Corp., Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. and Compaq Computer Corp. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from San Diego State University and a master’s degree in business administration from Pepperdine University.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100408/exclusive-yahoo-eyes-ex-microsoft-exec-blake-irving-for-top-product-and-tech-job/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100324/wanted-online-ad-sales-heads-for-both-yahoo-and-microsoft/ http://allthingsd.com/20100324/wanted-online-ad-sales-heads-for-both-yahoo-and-microsoft/#comments Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:04:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=25894

Even though they are two of the Internet’s largest advertising businesses, both Yahoo and Microsoft are without top execs to lead those units.

Worse, both are just entering a complex online ad sales and search partnership together, which will require a lot of management firepower.

Last week, BoomTown reported the departure of Yahoo’s head for the key North American market, Joanne Bradford, for a new job at social media start-up Demand Media. She starts there Monday.

It was a move that sent reverberations throughout the online ad market.

Less known, though, is that Microsoft (MSFT) has also been looking for almost a year for someone to head up its online ad sales force globally.

Yahoo (YHOO) is just starting its search to replace Bradford–with her boss, U.S. head Hilary Schneider, taking over on an interim basis.

In fact, even Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is pitching in, giving Bradford’s staff a talking to earlier this week about the need to press on.

Both Yahoo execs said the company will be looking at both internal and external candidates.

Until then, said a Yahoo spokeswoman, in the boringest quote ever uttered: “Yahoo! has leadership bench strength and we continue to be committed in delivering wow experiences to both users and advertisers.”

Not to worry about obfuscation, as BoomTown has the scoop!

Internally, the key execs being eyeballed include 11-year Yahoo veteran Mitch Spolan, VP of North American sales, and Seth Dallaire, a former Microsoft exec whom Bradford brought to the company last fall as VP of mid-market sales, a newly-created role responsible for all mid-market sales efforts across search and display advertising.

Another former Microsoft exec, Erika Nardini, VP of brand packaging, is also mentioned a lot as a possibility and is well-liked by the sales force at Yahoo.

Still, many feel that with the exodus of such a high-profile exec as Bradford, Yahoo has to attract another big name to replace her.

But externally, the pickings are much slimmer, with only two key names popping up as top choices.

One is a former Yahoo, Jacki Kelley, a longtime online ad exec who is now North American president of Universal McCann, a unit of the Interpublic Group (IPG) agency. Besides Yahoo, Kelley has worked at Gannett’s (GCI) USA Today and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO).

The second is Kathy Kayse, a well-regarded former AOL (AOL) ad exec, who now is in charge of digital ad sales at Discovery Communications (DISCA). Kayse also had a long career at Time Warner (TWX).

(Both are pictured here, Kelley at left and Kayse on the right.)

Microsoft is a dicier proposition, with exactly zero internal candidates considered qualified to lead the online ad sales effort, a job that would report directly into Corporate VP for Consumer & Online Darren Huston.

Microsoft has been searching for a long time now, with feelers all over the industry. A variety of names pops up, from new MySpace ad head Nada Stirratt to Bradford–also a former Microsoftie–herself.

In fact, the paucity of experienced execs to handle these complex jobs–which include the need to understand premium, network and search ad sales, as well as highly technical systems–is clear.

“Neither of these jobs are easy and, in many ways, a giant nightmare,” joked one online ad sales exec.

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