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June 20, 2007

business

Yahoo CEO torch passes from Semel to Yang

Posted Jun. 20, ’07, 10:25 AM PT by Kate Marshall
Category | Business

Semelyahoo.jpgAs of June 18, Yahoo’s chief executive officer is now co-founder Jerry Yang, according to IDG News Service. Although Terry Semel has been CEO for six years, the past two years of his tenure were marked by criticism that Yahoo didn’t strike while the iron was hot, when it came to search engine advertising. Google, on the other hand, has profited well from advertising via search engines.

Given that the iPhone will feature “push” email from Yahoo when it arrives (June 29, in case you’ve forgotten), what does this change in leadership mean for Apple? Let’s ask an analyst:

By moving Yang into Semel’s position, Yahoo gets a CEO of the caliber of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who can match Google’s triumvirate of engineers, said Allen Weiner, a Gartner analyst, referring to Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founders and presidents Larry Page and Sergey Brin. “I always felt that the best CEO for Yahoo already worked there: Jerry Yang,” Weiner said. “He is far and away the best choice they could have made.”

Semel, formerly chairman and co-CEO of Warner Bros., will become non-executive Chairman at Yahoo after his resignation. He will also serve as an advisor to Yahoo’s management team. In addition to appointing Yang CEO, Yahoo’s board of directors also named Susan Decker as president. Decker was the former executive vice president and head of Advertiser and Publisher Group at Yahoo.

[Via Macworld]


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