While former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson fades from the tech scene — besides getting jacked from the top job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, he’s also just come off two tech boards he had served on — the investigation over his hiring and how a fake computer science degree got into the company’s regulatory filings continues.

While the quick-fire controversy burned Thompson, as well as now former Yahoo director Patti Hart, the special committee of independent board members is still at work trying to figure out how such a mess was made in the first place.

And, more importantly, who knew what when and told whom.

At the time the committee was announced, Yahoo said it would “conduct a thorough review of CEO Scott Thompson’s academic credentials, as well as the facts and circumstances related to the review and disclosure of those credentials in connection with Thompson’s appointment as CEO.”

The special committee is chaired by Yahoo’s new Chairman Fred Amoroso and includes John Hayes and Thomas McInerney, two independent directors who joined the board in April.

Yahoo also hired independent counsel Terry Bird of the law firm Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks and Licenberg in Los Angeles to handle the inquiry.

The company also noted at the time that “the special committee and the entire Board appreciate the urgency of the situation and the special committee will therefore conduct the review in an independent, thorough and expeditious manner. The Board intends to make the appropriate disclosures to shareholders promptly upon completion of the review.”

Gripped by urgency myself, I have grown weary waiting by the phone for some official answers, which sources said will not be forthcoming for some time.

But since I am the most curious of cats — uh-oh! — I started dialing around on my own to find out what’s what.

And, according to sources — especially since Thompson has settled with Yahoo and will not get severance due to the academic falsehood — the big focus is now centering on if the company’s staff screwed up the background check of his academic credentials, thus allowing it to get into its official filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and also on Yahoo’s corporate Web site.

When Thompson was hired from eBay, where he was president of its PayPal payments division, the online commerce company had the correct bio information in its SEC filings, although not on its Web site or in its PR materials.

The question is: Did someone from Yahoo simply rely on Web bios and not check eBay filings and did anyone ever re-check Thompson’s college records? (Note: It took me 15 minutes flat to find out he did not have such a degree at Stonehill College in the Boston area.)

If lazy checking was the case, it spells rank incompetence on the part of staffers, as well as Hart, who headed the search after Yahoo fired its previous CEO Carol Bartz last fall.

A much more troubling line of inquiry taking place is aimed at the possibility that someone at Yahoo did discover the discrepancy in Thompson’s resume and either did not report it up the chain of command or did and it was either lost or ignored or, well, worse.

While this certainly ain’t Watergate, such a situation would be very hard for Yahoo to explain away as easily to shareholders, especially potentially litigious ones. As it is always said, the coverup can often be more damaging than the crime itself.

And, if it is determined by the special committee that certain employees knew of Thompson’s resume inaccuracy, it will most certainly result in dismissals of Yahoo employees.

The focus on the committee — which truly cannot sweep this under the rug, if it occurred in this much more serious scenario — is most obviously the legal department of Yahoo, which is responsible for making certain filings are accurate.

Also under scrutiny is the quickness of the hiring of Thompson.

Among the questions is how much vetting was done and whether adequate questions about him were asked among a variety of possible sources.

When he was picked in January, Thompson was a dark-horse candidate for many, including some Yahoo board members.

In fact, he was not on the initial headhunting lists prepared by outside talent search firm Heidrick & Struggles.

That’s because Heidrick had placed Thompson at eBay in mid-2000 and could not then recommend him to Yahoo. As it turned out, Thompson took it upon himself to cold email Yahoo board member and Intuit CEO Brad Smith about the job, who then passed Thompson’s interest to Hart.

Heidrick had no involvement in the checking of Thompson, although he later blamed the firm in a public meeting with Yahoo employees for putting the error in his bio in the first place from when he was hired at eBay. Heidrick quickly called the accusation “verifiably not true” in a memo to its own employees.

Sources said that meant that the firm had a resume that Thompson had submitted to it that also contained the error.

But the central mystery of how that mistake appeared on his bio will likely remain just that without further explanation from Thompson.

In a radio interview in 2009, he did not correct a specific question about the twin degrees he appeared to have held and seemed to even agree with the show’s host, Moira Gunn, about them.

Later, she told me in a video interview that Thompson had clearly indicated to her in the prep for that interview that he indeed had a computer science degree.

Still, it is still not clear — and may never be — who put the faux computer science credential on his resume in the first place.

So, with all apologies to Winston Churchill: It might remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Here’s a memo that interim Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn sent his troops earlier today about some management switcheroos.

No surprise that ousted CEO Scott Thompson’s first big hire from his former job at eBay’s PayPal unit is gone — just-installed-a-minute-ago commerce leader Sam Schrauger. (Also heading out, but not in the memo is PR head Amanda Pires, also from PayPal.)

Also moved aside, to a position unknown, is Thompson’s chief of staff Marta Nichols, who had been head of investor relations at Yahoo. Levinsohn’s new chief of staff is Michel Protti.

So who’s in? Levinsohn favorites, of course, including: Mickie Rosen, who headed Americas media and who now gets global media and commerce; Mollie Spillman, who was co-running commerce with Schrauger and is now head of marketing (replacing former CEO Carol Bartz-regime exec Penny Baldwin).

For those following the soap opera that I am chief writer for, “Days of Our Yahoos,” Levinsohn became leader of the beleaguered Internet giant after a controversy over a false computer science degree on Thompson’s bio.

Like sands through the hourglass, these are the former employees of our Yahoo.

(At least, though, this is not a story about the Facebook IPO — hands up for those sick and tired of that one now?)

Here’s the Levinsohn memo:

Yahoos:

Thank you for all of the feedback, support, and comments since our all-hands meetings in Sunnyvale on Monday and NYC on Wednesday. I’m fired up and I hope you are too. I believe in the power of what we’re doing. We have an incredibly talented team, unparalleled strengths in key areas and most importantly, I see the purple pride building everywhere. Let’s move forward quickly with conviction and confidence.

We have a lot to do. The most pressing thing I heard from you is the desire to clearly define our vision and strategy. I promise you we will be transparent and plan to articulate this in the coming weeks. Right now, we’re identifying the most critical priorities and initiatives, clarifying the scope and charter of teams, ensuring we’re positioned to build on successes quickly and effectively, and focusing on Q2.

As part of this, there are a few changes to the structure of my leadership team beginning today:

**Mickie Rosen is now the head of global media and commerce. Mickie has done a fantastic job driving our Americas media network and will now lead the global media team — including media editorial, business development and partnerships, product, design, and engineering. Additionally, the commerce business unit will return to its original home and report into her. Commerce is a significant opportunity for growth, and in order to thrive it needs to be woven throughout the Yahoo! experience and close to our major traffic drivers.

**Mollie Spilman is our new chief marketing officer (CMO). Mollie is responsible for all of our worldwide marketing and brand efforts as well as the global comms (PR) team. Prior to the commerce org, Mollie ran the Americas marketing team for the last two years, creating closer connections between Yahoo! and its consumers and advertisers.

**Michel Protti will remain as my chief of staff, and will play a vital role in keeping me sane and all of us on track. Marta Nichols will help Michel through a transition as she determines her next role.

**Sam Shrauger is leaving the company and Penny Baldwin will transition her duties to Mollie. I want to thank Penny for leading the Marketing organization as acting CMO. Please join me in wishing them both well in their future endeavors.

As you’ve heard me say before, our largest competitive advantage is that we have amazing people. I want to help unleash our power, and I want to hear your challenges, successes, and how you are going to focus on transforming Yahoo!. Look for frequent and transparent communications from me, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Ross

Yahoo’s embattled CEO Scott Thompson (pictured here) is set to step down from his job at the Silicon Valley Internet giant, in what will be dramatic end to a controversy over a fake computer science degree that he had on his bio, according to multiple sources close to the situation.

The pair will apparently say he is departing for “personal reasons.” Sources said that Thompson will be claiming to be leaving due to a serious illness that he recently discovered he had.

But the evolving crisis — which is just over a week old — centered on his botched resume and how he handled the thorny issue is the key reason for the abrupt end to his tenure as a CEO.

Thompson’s likely replacement on an interim basis will be Yahoo’s global media head Ross Levinsohn, who most recently also ran its Americas unit, including its advertising sales.

In addition to the management upheaval, Yahoo’s board is closing in on a settlement with the man who discovered Thompson’s misstep, activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point, said sources.

The situation could change, since Yahoo’s full board still has to meet this morning to officially approve the sweeping changes at the long-troubled company.

But, if it is, this development goes a long way toward fixing some of what has been ailing Yahoo recently.

And it’ll also be a stunning victory for Loeb (pictured here), since the pugnacious hedge fund investor is set to get three board seats from a slate proposed by him as part of a proxy fight aimed at Yahoo. The new Yahoo directors will be media exec Michael Wolf and turnaround specialist Harry Wilson. Loeb’s fourth selection — former NBC head Jeff Zucker — will withdraw.

The five current Yahoo directors — who were to step down at the company’s annual meeting this summer — will leave the board effective immediately, sources said, to make way for the Third Point selections.

Finally, Yahoo’s recently added director Fred Amoroso will be named chairman of the board.

Amoroso is the director who has been conducting the investigation into the issues raised by Loeb about how the fake academic credentials got in Thompson’s public bios, as well as in Yahoo’s regulatory filings, and also the hurried circumstances around his hiring in January.

Those mysteries — read, screw-ups — might never be solved now, although Thompson made a convoluted attempt to explain it all in two awkward employee meetings at the end of last week. In those gatherings, according to numerous sources, he blamed a headhunting firm for introducing the mistake when he was being hired for a job at eBay in the mid-2000 timeframe.

That company, Heidrick and Struggles, slapped back last week with an internal memo, noting that Thompson’s claim was “verifiably not true.” Sources said that Heidrick told Yahoo’s board that it was in possession of a resume that Thompson had apparently submitted showing the inaccurate CS degree on it.

That memo, impugning Thompson’s credibility, was one of many that piled on to create an impossible situation for the Yahoo board, related to his leadership ability going forward.

Thompson had also previously issued a Yahoo statement, in which he apologized for the “distraction” caused by the problematic resume, but not for the mistake itself.

And, initially, Yahoo — under his direction — had called the borked resume an “inadvertent error.”

Such fumbling to fix the situation was among the many other issues that the board has been considering relating the ability of Thompson to remain in his job. Also of importance was the sinking morale of Yahoo employees, who had largely rejected Thompson’s excuses in the ResuMess scandal.

Internal message boards at Yahoo lit up all last week, with staffers largely rejecting his explanations. In addition, a number of top execs and engineers approached the board calling for Thompson’s firing.

While that’s not precisely what happened here, it’s close enough to describe Thompson’s departure as inevitable.

All this change comes in the wake of a massive restructuring he was in the midst of at Yahoo, after 2,000 employee layoffs.

Thompson was pushing forward a vision of adding a much more significant data and commerce element to Yahoo’s largely ad-based business.

That is likely to be less stressed under media-focused Levinsohn, who will be essentially trying out to be the permanent CEO.

Well known in the media and advertising communities, he has worked at a number of big online efforts over many years.

According to his bio at Yahoo, where he arrived in 2010:

He previously served as the President of News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media, where he was responsible for the day-to-day operations, strategy and acquisitions that helped transformed the company into a leader in digital media. He also held senior management positions with AltaVista, an early pioneer and leader in search, CBS Sportsline where he oversaw all content and development for the top rated sports site, and HBO where he launched and oversaw a unit developing new programming and revenue streams. Levinsohn also was the co-founder and managing director of Fuse Capital, an investment and strategic equity management firm focused on investing in and building digital media and communications companies.

Levinsohn sits on the board of Freedom Communications and the Bogart Pediatric Cancer Research Program. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from The American University.

So far in my checking, Levinsohn’s resume is accurate.

More to come, obviously.

I have emails and texts and calls into everyone for comment, but apparently they are all out at a Mother’s Day brunch (except me).

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

Longtime Yahoo exec Raymond Stern (pictured here) — who seems to have fit into a lot of management reorgs in his short time at the Silicon Valley Internet giant — has been named to a new role at the company as SVP of strategy, corporate development and new ventures.

He’ll be reporting to CEO Scott Thompson, according to an internal memo I got sent by the people who send me internal memos from Yahoo. (A group, I might add, that is getting bigger by the day.)

When he got to Yahoo in late 2009, Stern had first been named SVP of North America partnerships and business development for Yahoo. He later had to also pinch-hit as its head of U.S. audience, mobile and local, after an exec left, before being named SVP of North America audience. Then, after another exec took over the audience job, he was back to business development and partnerships and also added the listings business to his portfolio. Then, Stern got mobile biz dev back, after another exec left.

Now, the man who has been the Swiss Army Knife of Yahoo will be the key strategy guy for Thompson, who clearly wants to do a lot of strategizing.

Interesting note: Stern was a former consultant to Boston Consulting Group, which is Thompson’s go-to outside team on his ongoing restructuring of the company. He is also a former Intuit exec.

As per usual, here is the internal memo on Stern’s appointment from Thompson, who is dealing with some other very thorny issues right now too:

Yahoos –

Over the last few months, you’ve heard me talk a lot about focusing our company around our core business. As part of this, we need to find new ways to strengthen, leverage, and monetize our core assets — all in conjunction with our long-term strategy focused on driving growth. To help tackle this challenge, I’m excited to announce that Raymond Stern will take on a new role at Yahoo! as senior vice president of strategy, corporate development, and new ventures, reporting to me.

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to meet Raymond over the last two and half years here at Yahoo!, he previously oversaw distribution partnerships and business development, as well as our Latin American, Canadian, and small business teams. Earlier in his career, he spent 10 years at the Boston Consulting Group, and later had various roles at Intuit including leading strategy and corporate development during a transformational period in the late 90s through the mid 2000s.

In his new role, Raymond will work across the teams to ensure alignment and that we are taking advantage of opportunities around the globe. He will lead three critical areas for us:

Strategy: Raymond will lead corporate strategy, working in close partnership with the senior leadership team and me.

Corporate Development: Raymond will work with the team to find opportunities to accelerate our progress and growth through acquisitions, investments and strategic partnerships. In conjunction with this, Marcus Shen and his group will be renamed corporate M&A, and will continue to be the transactional execution arm supporting Yahoo!’s corporate development initiatives.

New Ventures: Raymond will look at emerging areas outside of what’s happening in the halls of Yahoo! and bring new innovative and disruptive ideas to the forefront.

In the coming weeks, you’ll hear more from Raymond as he works with the leadership team to align our corporate priorities and long-term strategy.

Please join me in welcoming Raymond to this important new role.

/signed
/Scott Thompson

And here’s to your new job, Raymond:

He’s sorry. Deeply regrets. Apologizes. Takes full responsibility for the unfortunate distraction to the people.

No, it’s not a scandal-ridden politician caught in some compromising position, but Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson talking about the hubbub created by the addition of a fake computer science degree on his bio.

This kind of move is, of course, PR 101, but it still took Yahoo several days after activist shareholder Daniel Loeb uncovered the resume problem, which the Silicon Valley Internet giant said was an “inadvertent error.”

In his new memo, which comes after a terse one on Friday, Thompson said he was upset by how the controversy has impacted the company.

“As I told you on Friday, the board is reviewing the issue and I will provide whatever they need from me. In the meantime, I want you to know how deeply I regret how this issue has affected the company and all of you,” he wrote. “We have all been working very hard to move the company forward, and this has had the opposite effect. For that, I take full responsibility, and I want to apologize to you.”

It is interesting to note that he said nothing in the new email about being actually sorry for the still-mysterious inaccuracy in his bio.

It was present since 2004 when he worked at eBay and also somehow got into the Yahoo regulatory filings after he was hired earlier this year.

Presumably, that information is to come after an investigation by Yahoo’s board, headed by independent director Fred Amoroso, which is proceeding now.

It will be announced officially tomorrow, but it is already in the works, as Thompson noted.

Earlier today, Loeb demanded all books and records about the circumstances of Thompson’s hiring and has made hay out of the issue.

To calm the story, said Thompson to his new troops: “I am hopeful that this matter will be concluded promptly.”

Unfortunately for him, that hope is probably also going to turn out to be inaccurate.

But read it for yourself. Here’s the internal memo that just went out to all Yahoo employees from beleaguered Thompson, which I obtained from the company.

Yahoos:

I wanted to share some additional thoughts with you related to the disclosure of my academic credentials.

As I told you on Friday, the board is reviewing the issue and I will provide whatever they need from me. In the meantime, I want you to know how deeply I regret how this issue has affected the company and all of you. We have all been working very hard to move the company forward, and this has had the opposite effect. For that, I take full responsibility, and I want to apologize to you.

In my note Friday, I said I would be focused on continuing to do what needs to get done. That’s because I feel I owe it to all of you to make sure that nothing disrupts the progress we’ve made in just a few short months due to all of your focus, commitment, and hard work. As you’ve heard me say many times, we have a tremendous business with incredible assets, and we can win by putting our customers first. The progress I shared with you in the first quarter should make clear that we intend to move fast and deliver on the potential of the business for our customers, shareholders, and all of you.

I know the board plans to conduct the review thoroughly and independently, and I respect that process. I am hopeful that this matter will be concluded promptly. But, in the meantime, we have a lot of work to do. We need to continue to act as one team to fulfill the potential of this great company and keep moving forward. You have my word that all my energy and attention will be on that mission.

Scott

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

Of course, the Yahoo internal memo for the Yahoo internal crisis of the week!

Here is CEO Scott Thompson’s email today to employees about the controversy around the fact that he does not have a computer science degree, as described in his bio in Yahoo’s regulatory filings.

Oh, just read it:

From: Scott Thompson
Sent: Friday, May 04, 2012 4:03 PM
To: all-worldwide@yahoo-inc.com
Subject: Staying Focused

Yahoos –

I am sure you have seen the reports of questions raised regarding my undergraduate degree. As we said yesterday, the board is reviewing the matter and, upon completion of its review, will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders. In the meantime, I’m doing what I hope all of you are doing — staying focused on our customers, our shareholders, our team and moving Yahoo! forward, fast.

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson just sent this email to Yahoo employees, about a new leadership organization for the company.

“It’s time for Yahoo! to move forward, and fast,” wrote Thompson (using punctuation I really like, with nice comma deployment). “And as we do, I want every one of us to keep one thing top of mind: what we do is about our customers, not about us.”

The core groups will essentially be media, connections and commerce, led by Ross Levinsohn, Shashi Seth and person to be determined (but I hear it is newly departed PayPal exec Sam Shraugher).

And, as previously reported here: Sales is off by itself, split into regions; ad technology is off to the side, pending sale; corporate and operations remain the same; and the central product organization is blown up and moves back into the units.

I’d go into more deets, but it is all below and tracks on numerous reports I have done, including this morning.

But please enjoy the memo, which Yahoos will be chewing over at an all-hands meeting later this morning:

Yahoos –

It’s time for Yahoo! to move forward, and fast. And as we do, I want every one of us to keep one thing top of mind: what we do is about our customers, not about us. For Yahoo! to win in our core business, every one of us must put our customers first. Specifically, we must focus all we do on the users who trust us to give them personalized content and communications, and the advertisers who want to connect with our users. To be very clear, our highest priority is winning in our core business and that will earn us the right to pursue new growth opportunities.

To accomplish that we’re establishing a new leadership structure, organizing all of our activities around Yahoo!’s customers. Effective May 1, Yahoo! will operate in three groups — Consumer, Regions and Technology — all supported by our established Corporate teams. Each of the three groups will be charged with delivering the best customer experiences and have very clear accountability for getting results.

Our new Consumer group will be all about creating great, engaging user experiences. Our geographic Regions will serve our advertisers and agencies and be accountable for all Yahoo! revenue. Our Technology teams will provide the advanced infrastructure, technology and science to enable our Consumer group and the Regions to deliver our best products and experiences into market, at scale, and fast.

Consumer

Our success is determined by how well we engage consumers and give them fun and informative experiences that they feel were designed just for them, on all screens. Our Consumer group will include three units — Media, Connections, and Commerce — and each will provide users the uniquely relevant and personalized content and services they expect and deserve, leveraging Yahoo!’s vast consumer interest data. We will redouble our focus on Yahoo!’s competitive advantage — our core, owned and operated (O&O) consumer properties. And importantly, we are bringing dedicated product engineering resources into each unit, much closer to our users.

• Media Our online media presence has long been our company’s clearest competitive advantage. Our Media group, led by Ross Levinsohn, will include all our media businesses globally with our marquee properties at the forefront: Homepage, News, Finance, Sports, and Entertainment. We will bring top design and engineering talent and differentiated technology — like Yahoo!’s Publishing Platform (YPP) — into close partnership with content producers and editors. Ross and his team will continue to drive real differentiation into our leading media experiences, including everything from our original coverage of breaking news events to tentpole events like the Royal Wedding and the upcoming Olympics and US Elections.

• Connections will be led by Shashi Seth, and include consumer businesses that connect and inform our users including Search, Communications and Social properties such as Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Answers, and more. The highest priority for Shashi and his team will be to think well beyond how users search, communicate and share online today. The Connections team is charged with fundamentally re-imagining how we design and deliver the next generation of these foundational Yahoo! experiences.

• Commerce We will renew our focus on commerce, and I expect this newly created team to play a critical role in Yahoo!’s future growth. Our Commerce teams will build on Yahoo!’s massive reach and strong consumer relationships, but their charter will go beyond traditional ecommerce. The focus of this team will be driving higher ROI for advertisers and agencies that reach users on Yahoo! by closing the loop for them between user interests, advertiser spend, consumer intent, and purchase behavior. The foundation of the new Commerce group will be Autos, Shopping, Travel, Jobs, Personals and Real Estate. We expect to name the leadership of this business unit shortly.

Regions

Advertisers and agencies are the primary customers and focus for each of our three regions. Our regional sales teams will be the advocate and voice for our advertising customers: listening to them and driving their needs into the products we develop. Regional sales must bring urgency and tenacious sales execution to all we do for advertisers. In addition, these teams will leverage our unique and vast data resources to position Yahoo! as the place to connect with users and generate the best, measurable ROI on their ad spend.

• Americas will be led by Rich Riley, who led the team responsible for extraordinary strides in EMEA in recent years putting the region on a path of consistent engagement and revenue growth, as well as meaningful market share and profit gains. Rich will be moving from Europe to our New York office soon.

• APAC, which includes many of our fastest-growing countries and strongest consumer products, will continue under the exceptional leadership of Rose Tsou.
• EMEA will be led on an interim basis by Christophe Parcot, EMEA’s regional sales leader, as we commence the search for a new leader for the region.

Americas, EMEA, and APAC will be fully accountable for Yahoo!’s revenue in their respective regions. I expect our Regional leaders and teams to work in very close collaboration with Ross and our other Consumer group leaders to fully align their goals for revenue and engagement as well as their execution, keeping our users and advertisers top of mind.

Technology

Our Consumer group and the Regions will continue to be supported by some of the most talented technology professionals in the industry, providing the advanced platforms and technology that allow Yahoo! to deliver great customer products.

• Core Platforms, led by Mark Morrissey, will provide the foundational platforms, technology, and research to enable great customer products and leverage Yahoo!’s vast data stores to enable deep personalization and optimized monetization. Mark’s teams will lead Apt, RMX, User Data & Analytics, our content optimization relevance engine (CORE), Yahoo! Labs and other key technology functions.

• Central Technology will continue to be led by David Dibble and include our data center and service engineering efforts, as well as our cloud infrastructure teams.

Yahoo! has made real progress in building modern, scalable platforms and infrastructure, but to move at the rapid pace our customers and our industry require we need more than scalable technology. This is among the most important changes we’re making: we must bring some of our best product designers and engineers much, much closer to consumer needs and demands. Many of our top engineers will continue building on our foundation platforms and technology to continue to drive speed and scale. But to ensure we really know and can serve our customers, we’ll also deploy top design and engineering talent into our Consumer business units, directly supporting our users’ favorite Yahoo! products to ensure we move much faster and meet customer needs with every product we deliver.

Corporate

Our major corporate functions will continue to support these new groups. Finance, Legal, and HR will remain under the strong leadership of CFO Tim Morse, General Counsel Mike Callahan, and Chief HR Officer David Windley, respectively. As we search for a Chief Marketing Officer, Penny Baldwin will serve as interim leader for the Corporate Marketing and Communications teams. John Kremer will lead a newly-created Transformation team that will ensure full implementation of and accountability for our restructuring and related organizational changes.

Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has decided to leave Yahoo! and will work closely with the new leaders over the next several weeks to ensure a smooth transition. He has made a tremendous contribution to the advancement of Yahoo!’s product strategy and execution over the last two years and I know you will join me in wishing him all the best in the future.

You will hear more from our business leaders about their plans to move each of these groups forward in the coming days and weeks. As we look to Yahoo!’s future, all of us must remember to always keep our customers first in everything we do. Ultimately, only our customers will decide whether we win or lose in the market.

I look forward to speaking with you at our All Hands Tuesday. If you have questions before we meet, please check Backyard for information and answers. If you don’t see the answers you need, please post questions on Backyard, or you may email questions directly to the leadership team.

Scott

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, who has developed a tough-talk reputation within Yahoo of late, went all sweet — well, less crabby, I guess — the day after the layoffs in which 2,000 employees were fired.

After dressing down top execs the night before the cuts by telling them the bad situation was due to their poor performance as leaders, his internal letter to the troops was also a bit cut-and-dried, with the not-very-sympathetic admonishment, “change is never easy.”

Not exactly what someone who just got their pink slip — or saw a close colleague get axed — likes to hear!

Today, Thompson opted to go with the softer side of Scott, in an internal memo I obtained titled “time to move forward.” It includes a promise to deliver a real strategic plan next week at an “All Hands” meeting. (I have previously reported that he was rolling out a new structure next week.)

Yahoo’s activist shareholder Third Point admonished Thompson yesterday for not having such a plan in place before making such widespread layoffs, which shed 14 percent of the workforce from the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

“While this action was unfortunately necessary and widely expected, Third Point, Yahoo!’s largest outside shareholder, is disappointed that this round of cuts occurred before CEO Scott Thompson has articulated his strategic plan for the Company,” it wrote in a letter (embedded below). “Shareholders deserve a management team and board who have a vision and strategic plan.”

Internally, there was also a lot of grumbling over the lack of a vision before the layoffs and worries that Thompson does not have a clear path for Yahoo.

“It’s like going into war and killing a big chunk of troops right before, without a plan in place about how to win,” said one person, in a common sentiment I heard from employees. “Everyone left feels shell-shocked and with no direction.”

In recent meetings about various options, including selling off a variety of Yahoo’s businesses, the former president of eBay’s PayPal payments unit has focused on a range of ideas, especially adding more commerce and data to the mix.

Apparently, all will be revealed next week, in what Thompson called “comprehensive plans for Yahoo!’s future.”

Thompson also did a little cheerleading:

“We can do this. We will do this! One thing I’ve heard repeatedly since I got here is that everyone wants to win again…I have seen big turnarounds before, and this company has the foundation, the spirit, the backbone, and the creativity to get it done,” he wrote. “Personally, I can’t wait to get moving.”

That’s good, because shareholders and employees have been waiting a long time for any forward momentum at Yahoo.

Here’s the memo below in its entirety:

From: Scott Thompson
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2012 1:15 PM
To:
Subject: time to move forward…

Yahoos –

This was a tough week. Thank you all for supporting each other through a difficult time.

As hard as big changes like this can be, I was encouraged to hear support from so many of you who really understand our need to operate differently. That said, I also know many of you still have a lot of questions about where we’re headed and how fast we can get there. I shared a few thoughts in my note earlier this week and you’ll hear more at our All Hands next week.

We deliberately separated this week’s employee action from next week’s discussion of our strategy. The reason was simple: we felt it was only fair and respectful to those who are leaving and transitioning to take care of each of them before turning to our future.

Starting next week we will begin looking forward and our All Hands is just the beginning. You’ll be hearing a lot more from me and other leaders about our comprehensive plans for Yahoo!’s future. The immediate next step for all of us is to get clear on our goals, and then take action and move.

There’s a lot to do and that’s why I can’t stress enough that we all need to focus on getting stuff done. Getting stuff done is short hand for eliminating bureaucracy and barriers so we can all innovate as fast as our customers and the industry require. That’s pretty fast.

Our users want fun, informative, engaging experiences on all screens that they feel were designed just for them. Advertisers want it to be much easier to work with us and they want measurable ROI on their spending. We can do all that. But we won’t win by talking about the opportunity. We’ll win by putting our customers first, creating high-quality experiences, and iterating on them quickly. Great user and advertiser experiences are what will ignite excitement around our brand and get us growing again.

You’ll receive the official invite to our All Hands shortly and we want to know what’s on your mind in advance. If you have questions before we meet next week, please check Backyard for information and answers to your questions. If you don’t see the answers, please post questions on Backyard, or you can email questions directly to the leadership team.

We can do this. We will do this! One thing I’ve heard repeatedly since I got here is that everyone wants to win again. There is so much passion for Yahoo! — for what it was and for what we all believe it can be. Even after all you’ve been through, there’s a hard core crew of Yahoos who believe in this company and in its ability to thrive. I have seen big turnarounds before, and this company has the foundation, the spirit, the backbone, and the creativity to get it done.

Personally, I can’t wait to get moving.

Scott

And here’s the Third Point letter from yesterday:

TP April 4 Statement

Finally, here is a video of a “Reporters’ Roundtable” I did last week on CNET:

In a move that AllThingsD had previously reported was coming, Yahoo said it had laid off 2,000 employees, or 14 percent of the workforce.

“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! — smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require,” said Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson in a statement. “Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions.”

While Yahoo has had periodic layoffs over the years, this one is its most significant in its history, and will also result in another large-scale restructuring of the management organization. More cuts are also likely to follow in the months ahead, due to the reshaping of Yahoo.

The latest employee action is being pushed by Thompson, who joined the Silicon Valley Internet giant in January from eBay’s PayPal unit.

“Change is never easy,” he wrote in an internal email to Yahoo employees (it is below in its entirety), in a well-worn cliché I am dead certain few appreciated hearing today from the top leader.

At an internal meeting with top staff last night, Thompson — who has gotten what seems to be a well-deserved reputation for chewing folks out at Yahoo — was more direct with the execs gathered, berating them extensively for not delivering and getting the company to this sorry point.

Ouch, Scott! It’s Easter, so it might be time for some forgiveness. (And no more ranting about my reporting to those inside Yahoo, since I have been 100 percent accurate so far. FYI, will aim for 110 percent next week!)

Yahoo said it will save about $375 million with the cuts, incurring a $125 to $145 million pretax cash charge for employee severance in its second quarter. Before the cuts, Yahoo had 14,000 staffers and has many thousands more hired as contractors.

The layoffs touch all units of the company, but the hardest hit is the product division, which is headed by Blake Irving, as well as its marketing, research and international units. Yahoo gave no details on the layoffs other than the number.

But the fate of two key parts of the soon-to-be-blown-apart unit — Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, Right Media and APT, and its search business — is still being contemplated, as I have previously reported. Possible scenarios include a sale or a joint venture transaction for both, which employ thousands of Yahoo staffers.

The layoffs tomorrow are not the end of the road in cutting costs. Along with the likely shedding of its ad tech and search businesses, Yahoo leadership is also looking at future cuts as it evaluates current businesses, which could lop even more employees off its roster.

That said, Yahoo will be doubling down in some older and new arenas, so there would also be simultaneous hiring in the months ahead.

As wrenching as they will be today at Yahoo, the layoffs come as no surprise. Thompson had told employees in memos and also in recent meetings that “real change” was coming to the company.

Along with the trauma of the layoffs, Yahoo is also facing two other tense face-offs externally. In one, activist shareholder Third Point is waging a proxy fight for board seats and stepped up the public pressure this week; and Facebook struck back hard at Yahoo’s patent lawsuit with a counterclaim of its own.

After the layoffs tomorrow, sources say Yahoo will be announcing a new organization by next week. Thompson, along with outside consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, are making what appear to be profound changes.

Sources said that Yahoo will most likely be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s consumer products businesses and one focused on global and regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 employees aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is pegged to run the media arm, which will also include its leads/commerce businesses, such as autos; Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — is likely to run consumer products, which will include Yahoo’s communications and search businesses.

Yahoo has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, who will also be boss of the U.S., Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa sales regions. Rich Riley, who was recently running EMEA, is reportedly the pick for U.S. sales; Rose Tsou, who is running Asia, would presumably stay put; Yahoo is looking for an EMEA sales lead.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

One big question mark is how Chief Product Officer Irving fits in the possible new org, in which the new units get control of their product development. Irving has reportedly had several incoming job offers, although it is not clear if he has responded to that interest.

But today, the focus is on the layoffs and letting go all those employees, many of whom have worked at Yahoo for years. Even if it will result in a stronger Yahoo, as Thompson promises, it is still a very sad day in Sunnyvale.

Here is a video on the topic that I did with the WSJ.com “Digits” show today, after the cuts were announced early this morning:

Here’s the entire terse statement from Yahoo:

Yahoo! Statement

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Yahoo! today confirmed that it is taking important next steps to reshape the company for the future.

“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! — smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require. We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first — and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal,” said Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo!. “Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions. We deeply value our people and all they’ve contributed to Yahoo!.”

Yahoo! has a solid foundation — nearly 700 million users and thousands of advertisers that engage with Yahoo! properties regularly and trust the company with their data and their business. Through its restructuring efforts, Yahoo! intends to grow by responding more quickly to customer needs and competing more effectively in areas where it can win. Yahoo! has identified key parts of the business — a select group of core businesses, the platforms that support those core businesses, and the data that drives deep personalization for users and ROI for advertisers — where the company will intensify efforts and redeploy resources globally, all focused on increasing shareholder value. With a clear focus on profitability and growth, the company will be disciplined in its investments and radically simplify how it builds, launches and maintains many of its properties and products.

Today, the company will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or phased transition.

Yahoo! expects to realize approximately $375 million of annualized savings upon completion of all employee transitions. The company currently expects to recognize the majority of an estimated $125 to $145 million pretax cash charge relating to employee severance in its second quarter financial results. The company may incur additional charges in connection with this action. More information will be provided about Yahoo!’s future direction in conjunction with the release of its first quarter financial results on April 17, 2012.

And here is Thompson’s memo to employees, stating the obvious and with nothing new from previous statements and internal memos:

Yahoos –-

Today we are restructuring Yahoo! to give ourselves the opportunity to compete and win in our core business. The changes we’re announcing today will put our customers first, allow us to move fast, and to get stuff done. The outcome of these changes will be a smaller, nimbler, more profitable Yahoo! better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require.

Over the last 60 days, we’ve fundamentally re-thought every part of our business and we will continue to actively consider all options that allow Yahoo! to put maximum effort where we can succeed. As part of this process, I believe we have to focus to win in a select group of core businesses globally:

Core Media and Communications: Our content, media, and communications experiences must be best in class. That includes getting today’s core properties right and innovating on a next generation of great product experiences across all screens.∙

Platforms: We must make our core platforms and systems a genuine strength for Yahoo! — platforms that we can really leverage to support our massive scale, drive the deepest personalization, and boost speed to market.∙

Data: Our massive data sets must become a genuine competitive advantage for Yahoo!. We have to unlock the value in our data to allow us to really understand our 700 million users, encourage and win their engagement and trust, leverage everything they do with us to more fully personalize their experiences, and to give our advertisers the immediate insights they are rightfully demanding.

We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first -– and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal.

Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate jobs, which means losing colleagues and parting with friends. Today, we will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or a phased transition. We value our people and for those who will be leaving, we thank you for all you have contributed to Yahoo!. We will treat all of our people with dignity and respect, providing resources to help manage through their transition.

Change is never easy. But the time has come to move Yahoo! forward aggressively with increased focus and accountability. Our values have always been about treating all Yahoos with dignity and respect, and today is a day to embrace those values. This is an amazing company with exceptionally talented people and I know we will all do our best to encourage each other through this difficult period of transition.

Scott

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo’s massive round of layoffs — which is likely to impact up to 2,000 employees — is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg that will hit the storied Silicon Valley Internet giant in the months to come.

Sources said Yahoo is currently planning to announce the cuts in staff in the early morning, just as the markets open. That could change, of course, but the cuts will definitely occur within the next two days.

The layoffs, which will touch all units of the company, are expected to hit hardest in the product division, which is headed by Blake Irving.

But the fate of two key parts of the soon-to-be-blown-apart unit — Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, Right Media and APT, and its search business — is still being contemplated, as I have previously reported. Possible scenarios include a sale or a joint venture transaction for both, which employ thousands of Yahoo staffers.

Also set to be hard hit are Yahoo’s local businesses, as well as its marketing and research divisions. While still sustaining losses, its media units will not be as badly impacted. And it’s not clear how many employee terminations will be aimed at the company’s general and administrative staff.

The layoffs tomorrow are not the end of the road in cutting costs. Along with the likely shedding of its ad tech and search businesses, Yahoo leadership is also looking at future cuts as it evaluates current businesses, which could lop even more employees off its roster.

That said, Yahoo will be “doubling down” in some older and new arenas, so there would also be simultaneous hiring in the months ahead.

But not tomorrow, which will be one of the tougher days in Yahoo’s long history of periodic layoffs. Newly installed CEO Scott Thompson had told employees in memos and also in recent meetings that “real change” was coming to the company.

That is indeed the case, which is causing massive strain throughout the company, which now employs over 14,000 and has many thousands more hired as contractors.

Along with the trauma of the layoffs, Yahoo is also facing two other tense face-offs externally. In one, activist shareholder Third Point is waging a proxy fight for board seats and stepped up the public pressure this week; and Facebook struck back hard at Yahoo’s patent lawsuit with a counter-claim of its own.

After the layoffs tomorrow, sources say Yahoo will be announcing a new organization by next week, which will create several major, soup-to-nuts units at the company. Thompson, along with consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, are making what appear to be profound changes.

Sources said Yahoo will most likely be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s consumer products businesses and one focused on global and regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 employees aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is pegged to run the media arm, which will also include its leads/commerce businesses, such as autos; Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — is likely to run consumer products, which will include Yahoo’s communications and search businesses.

Yahoo has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, who will also be boss of the U.S., Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa sales regions. Rich Riley, who was recently running EMEA, is reportedly the pick for U.S. sales; Rose Tsou, who is running Asia, would presumably stay put; Yahoo is looking for an EMEA sales lead.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

One big question mark is how Chief Product Officer Irving fits in the possible new org, in which the new units get control of their product development. Irving has reportedly had several incoming job offers, although it is not clear if he has responded to that interest.

Let’s hope that Yahoos who will be let go tomorrow find themselves with many new employment choices after the ax falls.

It began: “Yahoos: A lot has happened since I last talked to you.”

You can say that again!

Yesterday, Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson sent out an email to the troops in what appears to be an attempt to soothe the company, which has been under a lot of stress, including more high-level exec departures, board changes and more. More importantly, the Silicon Valley Internet giant is nervously waiting for a restructuring expected to hit within weeks, and also has been unnnerved by Thompson’s aggressive legal attack on one of its key partners, social networking site Facebook.

Unfortunately, the memo didn’t say much, except vaguely but definitively referencing that even more tumult was coming.

After noting that he had been making a “deep dive” into the company after getting there at the beginning of the year, Thompson said that he was focused on “what makes Yahoo special and what doesn’t work.”

The plan then? To get the company to be “aggressive and lean forward,” because “real change is coming.”

Rut-roh.

(In a related move, but not noted in the memo — which several sources said was linked to all the uncertainty around the expected restructuring and also high costs — Thompson also cancelled Yahoo’s annual global sales meeting, which was to be held for about 1,300 advertising staffers in Florida later in the month.)

“We are moving as fast with real urgency to move back to Yahoo playing offense once again,” said the Thompson memo, which was read to me by several sources, because of increased worries about the company once again hunting for leakers.

(Apparently, like his predecessor before him did unsuccessfully early in her tenure, Thompson is on a yet another pointless hunt for those who talk to outsiders. Memo to Scott: Yahoo is an online media company and not a pay-for-that-used-iPad-on-eBay outfit and the peeps there like to share.)

Back to the memo action. “Were are fundamentally rethinking every part of our business and looking at all options to put maximum effort where we can succeed,” wrote Thompson. “I’m putting tons of pressure on my leadership team … so we can move faster and more deliberately.”

He added — and the bolding is his — “the changes we make will not be incremental ones. We will make bold, fundamental changes to what we do and how we do it.”

After properly freaking the Yahoo staff out — with everyone trying to grok exactly what that meant in terms of their jobs — Thompson then went into three core things the company was going to focus on under his rule (more bolding!):

“1) Focusing intently on those parts of the business that have a competitive advantage.

2) Liberating all of us to work faster and make better decisions.

3) Thinking really creatively about how to build new businesses that leverage our trusted relationships with users.”

Those will be applied, wrote Thompson, to five key parts of Yahoo: Its core business (such as the homepage and news); platforms (such as its cloud services and Yahoo Publishing Platform); data (which Thompson said was the “single most underrated, underappreciated and underused asset, also calling it a “cornerstone for the next generation” of Yahoo); international; and an amorphous thing he called “our future.”

About that, Thompson said Yahoo would “go beyond simply protecting our core assets … we will more than just tweak what we have today … to innovate, acquire and disrupt outside our core.”

Then, without giving any specifics at all, he noted that it’s as “important to know what we’ll do as how,” before launching into three “core principles” for the company, which were all in bold caps (this dude loves punctuating, which I can appreciate!).

They are:

“LISTEN, UNDERSTAND AND PUT THE CUSTOMER FIRST.

GET STUFF DONE.”

(Thompson also underlined “listen,” as well as bolding it, in an orgy of key-shifting.)

“I learned early in my career that innovative concepts without execution are of no value,” he then said, in a classic business-bromide tone. “The Yahoo of the future has to be the organization that consistently surprises the world by how much we get done and deliver to our customers.”

The letter did reference the patent-infringement lawsuit with Facebook at the very end.

“I want to point out that this lawsuit has one simple purpose: Protecting valuable assets of the company and its shareholders,” Thompson wrote. “Others have respected and have licensed our valuable innovations and Facebook must too.”

Thompson ended by noting that “my door is open.” It will be interesting to see who has the guts to walk through it today.

It’s a graphic visualization that our social media editor Drake Martinet did for his beloved, Stacy Green, who is the VP of marketing and communications over at Mashable.

Drake asked Stacy to marry him last night and, because they are both such geeks, did this paean to their relationship that is just adorkable.

And we post it here, because ATD is not just about news — it’s about love, sweet love. Compared to our Apple coverage, it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.

No, not just for some, but for everyone — Happy Valentine’s Day to all our readers.

(By the way, Stacy said yes.)

Enjoy:

After the departure of top Yahoo advertising sales exec Seth Dallaire, who decamped to Amazon this week, Yahoo did a little reorganization of its U.S. sales team.

(I promise to stop with the LOLcat images after this one for a while, but it is purrfect.)

Rather than go into the deets, you can just read the internal memo on it from Wayne Powers, SVP of advertising sales for North America:

Team:

These first few weeks of the year have been a phenomenal showing of Yahoo! pride and a clear display of the opportunities we’re poised to capitalize on this year.

In discussions with executives from our 100+ meetings with some of our largest advertisers, agencies, and holding companies at CES, it’s clear we’re changing the dialogue by having a consistent go-to-market strategy: Premium Content Experiences, at Scale, Across Screens; by listening to and engaging with our clients in meaningful ways; and by focusing on digital media and innovation. We were given the top performance rating by one of our Global Agency partners — out of the five media publishers they met with, we were ranked number one based on our continued commitment to providing clarity and consistency in strategy and to strengthening our partnership. Great work everyone!

With that context, there are some changes that I want to announce effective today. Seth Dallaire is leaving Yahoo! to run North American Sales at Amazon. While it’s never easy losing great people, we’re fortunate that he has a very talented team that will carry on the focus and momentum. Please join me in wishing him continued success!

As part of this transition, Mark Ellis will expand his role to take on leadership of the Global Agency and Client Partnership teams. He will continue to lead North American Field Sales.

I’m excited to announce that Peter Foster will to take on leadership duties and will serve as the lead for our partnership with AOL and Microsoft, Interclick, mid-market display, mid-market acquisition sales, and the Channel Reseller team, reporting to me. Peter joined us as part of the acquisition of 5:1 where he served as Chief Revenue Officer, and has a long career in the industry. He previously was SVP sales at ValueClick/Fastclick, one of the biggest ad networks in the world, oversaw revenue at Photobucket after it was acquired by News Corporation, was an early pioneer in the monetization space at L90, and held senior revenue posts at Kosmix and Hi5.

I’m also excited to announce that Marc Grabowski will take on an expanded role and now will head the combined Interclick and mid market sales teams. As part of this new team, Michael Katz, the CEO of Interclick, will lead all sales operations and data and performance optimization for the combined teams. Both Marc and Michael will report to Peter.

We are fortunate to have such a talented team here at Yahoo!. Ross and I are confident that Peter, Mark, and Michael will lead our efforts to change the conversation in this space and industry.

I want to thank everyone for their continued hard work and dedication. We have a great team and a lot to be excited about. We continue to hear feedback from the agencies and clients about our progress, so let’s keep up the focus and energy and deliver on our goals! Please let me or your managers know if you have any questions.

–Wayne

As I reported late last night, Yahoo said it had named PayPal President Scott Thompson as its new CEO. The exec is currently in charge of the large eBay online payments unit.

He’ll start next week, but there are staff conference calls today and also an all-hands meeting on Yahoo’s main Silicon Valley campus (meet at URLs, troops!) tomorrow.

Yahoo shares are down almost three percent on the news so far, as Wall Street has been hoping for a big sale of some sort and not another turnaround.

Yahoo will be holding a 7 am PT press conference about the move and presumably to swan around Thompson.

(Welcome, Scott! I hope you were informed — please do not listen to what co-founder Jerry Yang says on this important issue — that you are supposed to send all internal memos to me! Also, as one of my Twitter followers, Mike Dudas of Google just tweeted: “If Thompson leads companies as well as he grows a moustache, Yahoo made a great CEO choice!!” I concur.)

A Yahoo PR person confirmed the hire very cordially in a phone call early this morning and the Internet giant also put out a press release.

So did I, of a sort, last night. Given I am too tired to rewrite myself, here is what I had reported:

The company fired its last CEO, Carol Bartz, in September, and Yahoo has been run by the board and also by interim CEO Tim Morse, who had previously been its CFO.

After Bartz’s ouster, Yahoo said it was looking at a range of strategic options, including the possible sale of all or part of the company.

That was the focus at first, although Yahoo had simultaneously hired Heidrick & Struggles to look for a new CEO.

The company attracted two partial investment bids from private equity firms, Silver Lake and TPG Capital, but shareholders were unhappy with the low prices of these so-called PIPE — Private Investment in Public Equity — arrangements.

Yahoo then moved to try to strike a tax-advantaged deal with its long disgruntled Asian partners, China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s SoftBank, to sell back parts of the large stakes it has long owned in Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan.

Those complex negotiations are still ongoing and look promising, which could yield Yahoo billions of dollars in capital to be given to investors, for stock buybacks or to invest in new initiatives.

Since then, the board — long considered one of the more cloddish in tech — has turned its attention to hiring a new CEO, in the hopes of trying once again to revive its flagging fortunes.

Thus, it began looking to hire someone with deep tech experience at a large public consumer Internet company in Silicon Valley.

That narrowed the field, with Yahoo looking at a range of choices with expertise in advertising, technology platforms and more.

There is a lot of that on the deep bench that eBay CEO John Donahoe has assembled at the online commerce giant, including Thompson.

Plus, he is a genuine Internet geek.

According to his eBay bio, Thompson became president of PayPal in early 2008, after serving as its CTO in charge of information technology, product development and architecture.

Before eBay, he worked at Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa formed to oversee global technology for the organization. He was also CIO of Barclays Global Investors and has worked at Coopers and Lybrand on information technology.

And here’s a tasty new wrinkle: Thompson recently “liked” Yahoo on his Facebook page, along with the decidedly more interesting Kickstarter and Splunk.

Again, Scott, thanks for the Facebook tip — I knew the social networking site could come in handy!

(Also, here is an interview I did with him post-announcement.)

And here is Yahoo’s official press release where Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock says nice stuff about Thompson:

YHOO_News_2012_1_4_General

Remember when Fortune magazine wrote in September that Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had reportedly bagged a bison as part of a “personal challenge” to eat only what he had killed?

Well, proof of that is hard to miss, now that the ginormous mounted head of said dead bison has been hung on the wall of a Facebook conference room used by the social networking site’s COO Sheryl Sandberg.

Zuckerberg placed it there recently as a prank, to surprise his top exec with the installation of the very hairy bison when she was away from Facebook’s Silicon Valley HQ.

And surprised she was when she got back and was faced with the creature, which pretty much takes up the whole room, as you can see above and below.

(And, let me just say on a personal level, like a digital version of the “Murder She Wrote” lady, solving the mystery of this geek-on-bison killing is a whole lot more satisfying than getting a pile of internal Yahoo memos.)

The bison has now been nicknamed Billy and also sports a Facebook-branded baseball cap and occasional hoodie — natch! (My suggestion if you want to use a dead beast metaphor most effectively here would be to clad it all in Google swag.)

While he never confirmed it, Zuckerberg had teased the crowd about the possibility of his hunting prowess at the f8 developers conference this fall in his keynote speech, displaying his Facebook page that had a picture of what he had tagged “Bison Burgers.”

In fact, it’s been quite a lot of bison for the famous entrepreneur since he felled the majestic beast. According to Wikipedia, bison usually weigh 700 to 2,200 pounds, but can be as much as 3,800 pounds. That’s a lot of burgers!

To get them, Zuckerberg learned the most humane approach and then shot the beast in California, after obtaining a hunting license and, presumably, a very big gun.

Clearly, he was serious when he told Fortune in May that “the only meat I’m eating is from animals I’ve killed myself.” Among the early victims, which grew in size, were a lobster, a chicken, a pig and a goat.

At this time, the Winklevii are still roaming the plains — and it would be illegal and just plain mean on Zuckerberg’s part to frag them any more than he already has.

So, he went for the bison, the next biggest beast in his cross-hairs.

Its head will be moved to Facebook’s new headquarters today along with the rest of the company, who will now work in spacious new digs.

Which, I am told, could easily fit a herd of elephants — but let’s not go there.

Over the next week or so, we’re going to follow the schedule of the actual event. Up now: Google+ exec Bradley Horowitz.

In an onstage interview with Peter Kafka, Horowitz talks about the progress being made in the search giant’s attempts to compete against social networking giant Facebook, the concept behind its organization and also the recent controversial internal memo by a Google engineer dissing the company.

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111114/googles-bradley-horowitz-talks-facebook-social-networking-and-that-memo-the-full-asiad-interview-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111109/microsoft-appoints-yusuf-mehdi-to-run-xbox-business/ http://allthingsd.com/20111109/microsoft-appoints-yusuf-mehdi-to-run-xbox-business/#comments Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:49:00 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://allthingsd.com/?p=142486

Microsoft said today that longtime company veteran Yusuf Mehdi will be shifting roles to head marketing for the unit that includes its Xbox gaming division. Previously, Mehdi was in charge of the company’s online services division audience efforts. He will now report to Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business.

Here are the internal memos on the move from Online Services Division President Qi Lu and from Mattrick:

Hi Everyone,

This email is to inform you that Yusuf Mehdi, Chief Audience Officer for OSD, will be moving on to a new and exciting chapter in his career, working for Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business (IEB), as the Chief Marketing Officer for IEB, effective 12/05/2011.

Yusuf and I have been discussing his career plan for several months, and we both felt with OSD and OABG’s success and momentum, the time is right for Yusuf to take on a new challenge for Microsoft. With more than ten years of service in Microsoft’s online services businesses, he has been a trusted adviser, a great leader of people, and has helped get us to where we are today in OSD. We are fortunate to have had Yusuf be an important part of OSD for the past ten years, and are equally fortunate that he is staying close, helping IEB continue its great momentum as it becomes a global entertainment brand for Microsoft.

Throughout my tenure at OSD, Yusuf has been a key member of the OSD LT and a trusted partner, from whom I have learned a tremendous amount about marketing, the industry, and Microsoft. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Yusuf and I am confident he will do an amazing job for Don, and continue to be a great partner to OSD and a great advocate for Bing and MSN.

Yusuf has been involved with leading Microsoft Online Services businesses longer than anyone else on the OSD LT, and has been a pivotal leader at critical milestones of our division’s journey from the early days of MSN, to the original MSN and Live Search products, to the launch of Bing and the consummation of key strategic deals for OSD and MS, including Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter and Nokia. Most importantly, he has built a world class marketing, business development, strategy, and product management organization that has made incredible contributions to the success of OSD and Microsoft. I want to take this opportunity to express my heart-felt thanks to Yusuf for everything he has done for OSD.

I have asked each of Yusuf’s direct reports to step up their contribution to help lead through this transition period. On an interim basis, all of Yusuf’s directs will now report into me. I have also asked that Mike Nichols help with coordination of the OABG ROB and represent OABG at the OSD LT level, in addition to maintaining his current responsibilities as GM of Bing Product Management.

Please join me in congratulating Yusuf in his new role, thanking him for his many contributions to Online, and wishing him all the best.

Thanks.
-Qi

From: Don Mattrick
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 3:33 PM
Subject: RE: IEB Global Marketing News

After 21 years of outstanding service, Mike Delman has decided to retire from Microsoft at the end of the calendar year. Mike’s decision will allow him to spend more time with his family. He will also continue his non-profit efforts with Children’s Hospital and lecture at the USC Graduate School of Business.

While there’s never a great time to lose a valued leader, the time is right for Mike and the business to transition as we embark on our next journey to significantly grow our business in the next five years.

Between now and the end of the year, Mike will lead marketing through our biggest holiday ever, continue to set us up for long-term success, and work with me and Janet Zimmerman to identify his successor.

Mike’s marketing contributions at Microsoft are innumerable — he joined Microsoft in 1990 as director of corporate communications, responsible for advertising, collateral, point of sale, direct marketing and worldwide packaging for the entire Microsoft product line. Mike later became the director of marketing for Microsoft EMEA. He also served as general manager of the MSN and managed worldwide marketing operations, data and analytics, advertising, relationship marketing and events in the Central Marketing Group.

In 2008, he joined IEB as the CVP of IEB Global Marketing. Here in IEB, Mike played an extraordinary role in redefining the marketing organization. Specifically, under his leadership, the marketing organization has deepened the connection between marketing and product development, reinvigorated our research and business intelligence efforts, and set the course for repositioning Xbox from a core games brand to an entertainment brand for everyone. Over the same time period, the Xbox business doubled. I also want to thank Mike for his leadership in working with the team in EMEA to drive growth and success in that region.

Please join me in thanking Mike for his years of great work, and a heartfelt congratulations on his upcoming retirement. He has always been a strong strategic advisor for me, and I look forward to spending the next few months together.

Best,

Don

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111109/microsoft-appoints-yusuf-mehdi-to-run-xbox-business/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111026/exclusive-like-marketing-yahoos-customer-advocacy-org-gets-sliced-and-diced-this-week/ http://allthingsd.com/20111026/exclusive-like-marketing-yahoos-customer-advocacy-org-gets-sliced-and-diced-this-week/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 07:01:31 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=136772

As happened last week to its centralized marketing division, Yahoo has broken up its Customer Advocacy organization, with its staff distributed to the various regions and the product unit of the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Customer Advocacy has been led by EVP Jeff Russakow, whose fate is now similarly unclear as it is for CMO Elisa Steele, whose division was diced up to the regions last week.

Both execs — who were hired by fired CEO Carol Bartz — plan to remain at the company until at least January, sources said.

Russakow, according to his Yahoo bio, has had “global responsibility for all of Yahoo!’s customer support functions, including audience, small business, ad operations, and search network quality.” He came to Yahoo from previous jobs at Symantec and Adobe.

Interim CEO Tim Morse sent a memo to employees about the change, noting Russakow is looking for his next opportunity, using much the same language as Steele used in her internal email.

The moves are interesting, given Yahoo’s current effort to find a new strategy, which includes a possible sale of all or parts of the company. But there is also a strong sentiment within the company to reorganize around strengthening its advertising platform and products.

I have a call into Yahoo PR for comment (but let’s assume I am accurate about this, shall we?).

More, obviously, to come.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111026/exclusive-like-marketing-yahoos-customer-advocacy-org-gets-sliced-and-diced-this-week/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111021/exclusive-yahoo-overhauls-marketing-unit-the-internal-memo/ http://allthingsd.com/20111021/exclusive-yahoo-overhauls-marketing-unit-the-internal-memo/#comments Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:48:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=135601

Yahoo is drastically rejiggering its marketing division, according to an internal memo sent today to employees from its Chief Marketing Officer Elisa Steele, in a move that seems to leave her future role unclear.

Steele was brought to Yahoo over two years ago by now-fired CEO Carol Bartz — whom she had been very close to — and charged with turbocharging and reorganizing the unit, which has never been strong.

While Steele certainly did overhaul the marketing department, some of her efforts, such as Yahoo’s pricey “It’s You” advertising campaign, have not worked out. And, largely due to the ongoing turmoil at the company, its brand has suffered under her watch.

The changes, which appear to be at the behest of Steele (though you never know at Yahoo!), will shift the major marketing functions back to the regions of the Silicon Valley Internet company from its current global centralized one.

“I believe we now need to bring marketing decisions, marketing talent and marketing budgets closer to the customer — and into the regions that depend on these critical plans,” she wrote. “We need to further link our marketing strategies to revenue growth, sales objectives and overall accountability.”

Since Steele took over the marketing department at Yahoo several years ago, she has been moving those powers to a more centralized system.

No longer.

In the internal memo, which I obtained and is embedded below, Steele outlines the shift, which will remove a lot of that control of marketing from the HQ and out to its business units.

Steele said in the email to the marketing team that she will remain at the company as CMO for now, although seems to indicate that she is also evaluating her future role.

“My current role as CMO on CEO staff is unchanged,” she wrote. “However, whatever I decide to do next for my career is my choice — and I’ll think about that on my own timeline.”

Sounds like an eventual departure to me, with Steele trying hard to stress she was going out on her own motor, even though giving up contro of big parts of your unit is unusual.

In any case, Steele obviously is betting now that on-the-ground control of marketing will help improve things for the beleaguered company. Here’s the memo:

Team,

It is critical for Yahoo! to grow faster and become more agile. We need to make decisions to accelerate the Regions’ growth plans around the world, and Marketing plays a crucial role in helping develop, support and execute these plans. We’ve built an integrated marketing machine that is an asset to help the company grow now and into the future. When we assembled a global and centralized organization in 2009, we took the opportunity to create best practices, establish consistency, deepen domain expertise, enhance functional capabilities and innovate for one of the biggest brands in the world. And, in the past 12 months, Global Marketing took home dozens of industry awards for marketing leadership in integrated consumer marketing, digital marketing and event marketing – including the acclaimed Cannes Lions, a Clio, a Webby and IAB Awards. Our Marketing achievements have been broad, deep and well recognized.

Now that we have this strong capability, it is time to leverage it even further. I believe we now need to bring marketing decisions, marketing talent and marketing budgets closer to the customer — and into the regions that depend on these critical plans. We need to further link our marketing strategies to revenue growth, sales objectives and overall accountability. Therefore, I want to put the marketing programs and tools we’ve developed right with the Sales and Audience teams responsible for the business outcomes.

It is with this in mind that I recommended a marketing reorganization plan to align to these objectives, accelerate decision-making and simplify roles. The plan centers on decentralizing the current global team into 2 types of specific teams:

1. Regional Marketing: Our regional marketing teams will move to report directly to the Regional leaders in Americas, EMEA and APAC.

2. Corporate Marketing: Our strategic brand, communications and marketing services teams will remain centralized and report into HQ.

This was my proposal to Tim for the best interests of Yahoo! today, and I am glad he agreed with my thinking. I really hope you will endorse and support these changes, too. Yahoo! needs your help and expertise to insure this important next phase is successful.

I want you to know how proud I am of your achievements and contributions. I also want to thank you for the incredible support you have shown me over the past 2.5 years in the current organization. It’s been an amazing brand adventure and working with each of you has been a great source of satisfaction.

My current role as CMO on CEO staff is unchanged. However, whatever I decide to do next for my career is my choice — and I’ll think about that on my own timeline. First, I will work with Tim, my peers and all of you to ensure a smooth transition — and that is my focus for now.

We have a meeting scheduled with the marketing leadership team on Monday and I can address any questions you may have about this transition.

Thanks,

Elisa

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111021/exclusive-yahoo-overhauls-marketing-unit-the-internal-memo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20111021/no-harm-no-foul/ http://allthingsd.com/20111021/no-harm-no-foul/#comments Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:01:41 +0000 John Murrell http://allthingsd.com/?p=135484

Amazingly, nothing bad happened to me at Google. Everyone just laughed at me a lot, all the way up to the top, for having committed what must be the great-granddaddy of all Reply-All screwups in tech history. But they also listened, which is super cool.

Google engineer Steve Yegge, who accidentally publicly posted what was meant to be an internal memo criticizing the handling of Google+

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111021/no-harm-no-foul/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20110930/only-one-yahoo-fearless-leader-note-this-week-please-ignore-the-un-ignorable-rumors/ http://allthingsd.com/20110930/only-one-yahoo-fearless-leader-note-this-week-please-ignore-the-un-ignorable-rumors/#comments Sat, 01 Oct 2011 00:03:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=127145

Yahoo’s interim CEO Tim Morse penned another weekly email to staff at the Silicon Valley Internet giant today; the only one from the company’s leadership, which sent out two internal memos last week.

It’s below, and again addresses the swirl of news around Yahoo’s plans as part of its ongoing strategery over the company’s future.

“I know there was some more swirl out there this week,” wrote Morse. “You know we don’t comment on rumors or speculation and for now, everything has been just that — rumors.”

Well, not so much, which I will be weighing in on soon via an old-fangled thing called reporting, Tim!

Until then, here is the latest missive:

Short note from me today. Before we head into the weekend, I wanted to give a shout out to the Flickr team for their great work on their new mobile features. What they rolled out this week got rave reviews and tons of great buzz. We also had a nice Demos and Drinks event here in Sunnyvale that I was able to check out, so thanks to all the Yahoos involved in that.

Last but certainly not least, I want to say thank you to the teams that are working hard on Advertising Week. It kicks off on Monday, and we’ve got some big stuff in store, so stay tuned on that front.

I know there was some more swirl out there this week. You know we don’t comment on rumors or speculation and for now, everything has been just that — rumors.

Rest assured, when we have something to share, we will. In the meantime, please know how much the entire executive team appreciates your great work — and please keep it up!

Have a good weekend.

Tim

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110930/only-one-yahoo-fearless-leader-note-this-week-please-ignore-the-un-ignorable-rumors/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110927/aols-europe-head-kate-burns-departs-govirals-maymann-takes-over/ http://allthingsd.com/20110927/aols-europe-head-kate-burns-departs-govirals-maymann-takes-over/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:15:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=125341

According to sources, AOL’s head of Europe Kate Burns has left the company and has been replaced by Goviral chairman and co-founder Jimmy Maymann.

Goviral is a unit of AOL’s Advertising.com and has been a bright spot in its ad business. Goviral’s CEO René Rechtman will now serve as the new head of the European Advertising.com Group.

Burns, who is SVP of sales and operations for AOL Europe, does not seem to have immediate plans and will stay at the company until the end of October.

Maymann reports to Ned Brody, who was recently named AOL’s sales head and Chief Revenue Officer.

According to an internal memo, he will head the Huffington Post owned-and-operated businesses for both Europe and Latin America. The Huffington Post unit has taken over all of AOL’s content businesses.

In related news, Peter Kafka reported earlier today that AOL’s music head had left the New York-based company for a start-up.

The change in Europe happened last week, the second international shift at a big U.S. Internet concern. Yesterday, I reported that Yahoo’s Latin America head left the company.

In fact, here is the memo from Brody, if you want go to town:

From: “Brody, Ned”
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:40:03 -0400
To: AOL_Advertising, B2B, FriendsofAdvertising, B2B_Partners
Cc: AOLExecTeam
Subject: Organizational Update

Team,

As you know, one of our focus areas has been to re-emerge as a dynamic player outside of North America. As a part of this plan, we made the strategic decision two weeks ago to focus these sales and marketing efforts on our core global businesses: the Advertising.com Group and The Huffington Post. I’m excited about the plans we have to move these businesses forward.

To best support these changes, we’ve formalized an operational structure that we believe will set us on the path for even greater global growth. I’m excited to announce that René Rechtman will serve as the new head of the European Advertising.com Group business and Jimmy Maymann will lead the Huffington Post O&O business for Europe and Latin America. René and Jimmy will report directly to me.

René will lead our strategy of partnering with publishers and advertisers across Europe. We believe that his proven leadership and expanded focus on our publisher and advertising businesses will allow us to scale quickly. Advertising.com and goviral operate in over 10 countries in Europe and we have an opportunity to fulfill our mission of building the strength of quality publishers and the strength of Europe’s best brands.

To help meet the outpouring of demand in many countries for our brand and content, we will be moving our global content platforms back into Europe — having started with the UK — and opening opportunities in Latin America. Jimmy will lead our European and Latin America operations, pushing our content expansion opportunities. He is one of the most talented entrepreneurs in our organization and the right person to lead this forward.

Our strong leadership team will continue to support the execution of our strategy. Nimeshh Patel will continue his role as head of European operations and will report directly into Artie Minson. Sarah Gavin will continue to lead marketing and communications, reporting into Maureen Sullivan. Noel Penzer will now serve as VP, Europe and Latin America, reporting into Jimmy. Luke Aviet will take on a wider European remit in the Advertising.com group, focusing on internationalization and expansion, and will continue to report into René.

It’s important to note that our current progress could not have been achieved without tremendous leadership. At this point in our company’s development, Kate Burns has made a personal decision to leave AOL to spend more time with her family and personal pursuits. Two years ago, Kate came on board as the SVP of European Sales and CEO of the European operation to help turn the business around. In that short time, she has successfully refocused our efforts, established a strong leadership team and scaled the new business operational structure.

She and the team have done this well ahead of schedule and I’m particularly proud of this progress. Kate will remain on board until the end of October in an advisory capacity and to help with the transition. Please join me in wishing Kate well in her future endeavors.

We told the world AOL would return to the global stage and that’s exactly what we did and what we’re doing. We have a number of exciting launches in the works in the coming months as well as executing on our daily commitment to our consumers, advertisers and teams. I ask that you continue to stay focused on our goals and most important, celebrate the amazing accomplishments of our collective teams in advancing our global strategy.

Best,

Ned

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110927/aols-europe-head-kate-burns-departs-govirals-maymann-takes-over/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110927/whitman-makes-comms-appointment-we-got-your-memo/ http://allthingsd.com/20110927/whitman-makes-comms-appointment-we-got-your-memo/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:16:07 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=125310 As newly installed Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman moves into her new role of cat-wrangler at the troubled tech giant, she appears to first be making sure the company’s often-confused messaging is more organized.

“It is critical that we speak with one voice,” wrote Whitman in an internal email I obtained (below).

Thus, she has appointed longtime HP exec Lynn Anderson (pictured here) to “take on the role of acting Chief Communications Officer reporting directly to me,” according to the memo she sent to senior leaders at the company.

Not sure what “acting” means yet, but Anderson has gotten the job that was once that of former SAP exec Bill Wohl. He was put on “special assignment” late this summer, whatever that means, with his duties being taken up by Global Marketing EVP Marty Homlish.

Now Anderson is taking over, having helped during the Wohl transition. She previously headed up influencer relations for HP’s enterprise business.

And before that, she worked on a variety of marketing jobs for HP Canada. Anderson’s background is wonky, according to her company bio: “Before joining HP in 1983 as a systems engineer, Anderson was a programmer, analyst and operations manager for several IT departments.”

During the initial announcement of her new job running HP, Whitman relied on longtime comms adviser Henry Gomez. Gomez, who worked closely with her when Whitman was CEO of eBay and later on her unsuccessful run for California governor, has a consulting business and presumably did not want to work full time for HP.

Here’s the memo:

To: Senior Leaders
Subject: Acting Chief Communications Officer

As we continue to execute our strategy for HP, communications will be an extremely important function and it is critical that we speak with one voice.

I want to thank Marty Homlish, EVP Global Marketing who stepped in and provided leadership during a critical junction. Going forward, I have asked Lynn Anderson to take on the role of acting Chief Communications Officer reporting directly to me.

Please ensure that Lynn is brought into all communications activities.

Regards,

Meg

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