SUNNYVALE, Calif. — After spending six weeks diagnosing Yahoo’s troubles, new chief executive Carol Bartz started to prescribe a cure Thursday with a management shake-up that will usher out the Internet company’s chief financial officer.
Besides pushing CFO Blake Jorgensen out the door, the overhaul will expand the responsibilities of chief technology officer Ari Balogh and the company’s top advertising executive in the United States, Hilary Schneider.
Bartz also created two jobs: a chief marketing officer and her own chief of staff.
Elisa Steele, who has been working at NetApp, will join Yahoo as chief marketing officer March 23, while Joel Jones, a former McKinsey consultant who has been Yahoo’s corporate strategist, becomes Bartz’s chief of staff. The changes were effective Thursday.
With the new pecking order, Bartz hopes to speed up Yahoo’s decision-making and have a senior team that supports her strategy for turning around a company struggling with three years of declining profits — a downturn that had battered its stock price well before the market’s overall decline.
Although Bartz still hasn’t specified how she intends to get Yahoo back on track, she has left no doubt about her resolve to recapture the Internet pioneer’s glory days.
“I’m singularly focused on providing you with awesome products. Period,” Bartz wrote in a blog posting Thursday addressed to Yahoo’s 500 million worldwide users.
Jorgensen provided no inkling he might be headed out the door when he met with USB analyst Benjamin Schachter earlier this week, Schachter wrote in a Thursday note.
“While we were fans of Blake, Bartz is clearly going to be leading the charge here,” Schachter wrote.
Bartz mainly wants to root out bureaucracy with her new chain of command.
“People here have impressed the hell out of me,” Bartz wrote Thursday. “They’re smart, dedicated, passionate, driven, and really nice. There’s so much great energy and frankly lots of optimism. But there’s also plenty that has bogged this company down. For starters, you’d be amazed at how complicated some things are here.”
Yahoo’s shake-up
Chief executive Carol Bartz shuffled some top executives in an effort to improve company decision-making:
Blake Jorgenson: Ousted as chief financial officer
Ari Balogh: Chief technology officer gets an expanded role
Hilary Schneider: Head of U.S. advertising also has expanded duties
Elisa Steele: Formerly of NetApp, becomes chief marketing officer
Joel Jones: Corporate strategist is now Bartz’s chief of staff
