New Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz last night unveiled her restructuring plan for the company designed to make the internet giant leaner, meaner … and flatter.
The restructure came as chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen became the latest senior executive to leave the company.
Last year, Microsoft abandoned its US$44.6bn takeover plans for Yahoo! after previous CEO Jerry Yang and the then board bungled the deal.
Six weeks ago, Bartz took over from Yang and shortly after admitted that she had held telephone conversations with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who repeated he is interested still in buying Yahoo!’s search business.
Bartz said the new structure is intended to dismantle silos that had slowed down the one-time internet leader.
Under the plan, Yahoo!’s technology and product groups will be combined into a single entity led by chief technology officer Ari Balogh.
Yahoo! will be divided into just two regions instead of four – North America, led by Hilary Schneider, and international, whose chief has not yet been announced.
The new structure is different to the previous ‘matrix’ structure at Yahoo! insofar as it has clear reporting lines and centralises control around Bartz.
“We’ll be able to make speedier decisions. The notorious silos are gone and we have a renewed focus on the customer,” Bartz wrote in her Yahoo! blog.
By John Kennedy
Pictured: the Yahoo! corporate building
