So will the GPS help Yahoo find its way at last? One can only hope so, since so many Yahoo executives have been finding their way to other companies. Coleman is just latest in a long string of talented individuals who have left the search engine, voluntarily or otherwise. At least ten others have moved to other companies in the last year, many to start up companies.
Dan Finnegan, responsible for HotJobs, left in May, not long before chief technology officer Farzad Nazem, who has yet to be replaced. Chief Sales Officer Wenda Millard quit the following month, and become president of Martha Steward Living Omnimedia. July saw the loss of Jerry Shereshewsky, who reported to Millard; he became CEO of Grandparents.com, a social networking site. A number of former Yahoos who had held very important positions with the search engine also became CEOs or took on major responsibilities at other firms, including Steve Mitgang, Gaude Lydia Paez, Bill Demas, and Paul Levine.
It doesn’t help that Yahoo’s former media group head Lloyd Braun has started poaching at his old company to help his new one, production firm BermanBraun. Horse changers include Geraldine Martin-Coppola and Mike Weetman. Jennifer Trespacz, Braun’s former chief of staff at Yahoo has also left recently, though she won’t be joining Braun; she took a job with games developer Electronic Arts.
To be sure, this isn’t entirely Yahoo’s fault. It’s only to be expected when upper level management attempts to get its company back on track. Kara Swisher, blogger for BoomTown, noted recently that “Many sources at competing Web outfits, such as Google and Facebook, tell me that they have been inundated with Yahoo resumes of late.”
Still, those who worry about such things must be concerned about the caliber of the people remaining at Yahoo. Tim Welo, senior recruiter at Victoria James Executive Search, a recruitment firm that focuses on the Internet industry, put his finger on the general problem without specifying Yahoo’s plight. “When something’s going on, the smart people look early, the less smart people wait a little longer, and some people put their heads in the sand,” he explained. This is why Yahoo must move quickly with its latest reorganization (it seems to have been in continuous turmoil since December at least) wait too long, and there will be too many ostriches and not enough brains.
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