Yahoo's Executive Structure Crumbles: Lu, Garlinghouse and Makhijani To Leave
It’s only been a few hours since we posted the ex-Yahoo Exec tracking spreadsheet, but it’s already seriously outdated. Three more execs will be leaving, say sources close to the company: EVP Qi Lu, SVP Brad Garlinghouse and SVP Vish Makhijani.
As an aside, Jeremy Zawodny, Yahoo’s technology evangelist who announced his departure last week, has announced he’ll be joining Craigslist next month.
Vish Makhijani
Brad Garlinghouse
It’s not clear where Garlinghouse is headed next, the rumor is multiple private equity firms are vying for his attention. Frankly, given his operating experience (he grew most of the properties under his control to no. 1 in their market, even as Yahoo search fell apart over the years), it’s too bad he isn’t ending up in a CEO role somewhere.
Qi Lu
Brad Garlinghouse and Vish Makhijani were considered serious contenders to take over departing EVP Jeff Weiner’s role – obviously they’re both off the table now. But a bigger concern is that there just isn’t much executive talent left at Yahoo at this point, other than CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker, who are increasingly isolated and seem to have lost the trust of all but the Yahoo board.
Update: Esther Dyson, who is on the Yandex board, e-mailed us to say Vish Makhijani is indeed joining Yandex, but as President and CEO of Yandex Labs in Silicon Valley. Not CEO of Yandex the parent company.
Update 2: Here’s the Yandex press release.