Mayer's Hires: Which Yahoo! Execs Have Left the Company and Why?
When Marissa Mayer, formerly employee No. 20 at Google (GOOGL) - Get Report , joined Yahoo! (YHOO) in 2012, she revamped the company's senior ranks. However, the company has grappled with waves of management departures and reshuffles. By late last year, the wave of departures had Mayer asking executives to agree to stay with the company for at least another three years. The exodus was costly and hampered Mayer's ability to turn around the ailing Internet giant, which is close to a sale of its core assets.
Here's a look at some of the high-profile executives who've left Yahoo! in recent years.
Yahoo! appointed Google executive Henrique de Castro as chief operating officer on Oct. 15, 2012. Mayer said in a statement that he was "an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader" with "operational experience in Internet advertising" and "proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations." De Castro was fired about a year after joining the company. During his short tenure at Yahoo!, de Castro made $38 million in salary and $58 million in severance.
Chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt departed Yahoo! last September for movie studio STX Entertainment. While she expanded Yahoo!'s online media offerings and brought high-profile hires like Katie Couric, her efforts failed to translate into increased advertising revenues. Savitt was one of Mayer's first major hires, joining in September 2012 from startup Lockerz. At the time, Mayer touted Savitt's "extensive experience in building and refining well-loved consumer brands like Amazon
, American Eagle Outfitters
and Lockerz."
Washington Post chief revenue officer Kevin Gentzel joined Yahoo! in October 2014 as head of North American advertising sales. Gentzel lasted about seven months, departing in May 2015. Two months later, he joined newspaper group Gannett
as chief revenue officer.
Last October, Yahoo! chief development officer Jacqueline Reses joined payments company Square
. She joined Yahoo! in 2012, served on Alibaba's
board and co-chaired the audit committee. Reses joined Yahoo! shortly after Mayer and Savitt as "executive vice president of people and development" from private equity firm Apax Partners, where she led the U.S. media group. Mayer said she would bring to Yahoo! "two decades of uniquely applicable operational experience around structuring organizations, programs, and strategies to build world-class teams in media and technology."
Longtime executive Mike Kerns joined Yahoo! for Mayer did, after his startup, Citizen Sports, was acquired in 2010. He left Yahoo! in April 2015 after five years there, where he served as senior vice president of the homepage. Kerns reportedly clashed with executives like Mayer and Savitt. Kerns subsequently joined the Chernin Group, led by media investor and former Rupert Murdoch deputy Peter Chernin, as president of digital.
Yahoo! chief information officer and senior vice president of infrastructure Mike Kail joined in August 2014 and left the following May. He arrived from Netflix
, where he served as vice president of IT operations. Mayer said he possessed "the perfect combination of experience and vision to lead our IT and infrastructure to even greater global reach and scale" in order to "deliver the best possible user and advertiser experiences." He brought with him two IT employees from Netflix, who subsequently rejoined their old employer after Kail left. He currently serves as chief innovation officer of security startup Cybric and was replaced at Yahoo! by senior vice president Laurie Mann.
Senior vice president of advertising technology Scott Burke left Yahoo! last August after 10 years to co-found Helix, a personal genomics startup.
Senior vice president of marketing partnerships and platforms Lisa Licht departed in October in the same week as Jacqueline Reses. She joined the company from Hasbro
in 2012. Commenting on several departures in October 2015, including those of Licht, Reses and Savitt, Mayer said that the executive exodus was the "result of careful planning" and that the leadership team was "unequivocally the strongest it's been during my tenure."
Facebook
poached Yahoo!'s chief information security officer, Alex Stamos, barely a year after he started at the company. He joined Facebook in June 2015 as its chief security officer, writing in a statement that "there is no company in the world that is better positioned to tackle the challenges faced not only by today's Internet users but for the remaining 2/3rds of humanity we have yet to connect" than his new employer. Still, he commended the "commitment, brilliance, drive and pioneering spirit" of his coworkers at Yahoo!, which he joined in February 2014.
Stamos' replacement as chief information security officer lasted only a month, with Ramses Martinez departing for Apple
in August 2015. He was replaced in October by Bob Lord, who held the same position at Rapid7
and previously worked at Twitter
.
TV veteran Dawn Airey was appointed senior vice president of Yahoo!'s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) operation in August 2013. Then-COO Henrique de Castro said in a statement that Airey was "well known for her visionary thinking, operational discipline and leadership skills," most recently at European media company RTL Group. She left Yahoo! two years later to become CEO of stock photo company Getty Images.