Yahoo’s CISO Ramses Martinez Quietly Left For Apple; CMO Savitt Joins STX As Digital President

Today comes news of not one but two C-level executive shifts at Yahoo. Ramses Martinez, who had been the interim chief information security officer at Yahoo for only a month, quietly left the company in August for a security role at Apple.

The news emerges at the same time that news has broken that Kathy Savitt, the company’s CMO and head of its media unit, will leave the company to join STX Entertainment, a film studio started around a year ago by mega Hollywood producer Robert Simonds, as well as other executive departures.

The news of Martinez departing Yahoo and joining Apple had not been announced but the details are confirmed in his LinkedIn profile, which notes that he joined Apple in August of this year as part of the Cupertino company’s information security team.

Reached for comment, Yahoo says that it is currently looking for a permanent CISO. “SVP Jay Rossiter is guiding our security team while we continue our search for Yahoo’s next CISO,” said a spokesperson for the company.

Martinez had only been appointed to the role in July, when the former CISO, Alex Stamos, was poached by Facebook. He had been with the company since 2011.

At a time when cybersecurity has been a increasing issue due to hacking incidents and developments involving the NSA and snooping by government authorities, Martinez oversaw a number of security initiatives at Yahoo.

They included the company’s corporate incident response policy, risk analysis process, threat matrix, and standards; creating and managing the company’s global incident response program; liaising with law enforcement during security incidents and investigations; and founding and managing the company’s bug bounty program.

Meanwhile, Savitt’s departure has been a little more public and high profile.

After Re/code published an article earlier today about a shake-up of the media unit, including the potential depature of Savitt, Savitt herself announced that she would move to STX on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ksavitt/status/642376052916944896

STX then confirmed her new role, as president of the company’s digital operations. Yahoo then also, for what it’s worth, confirmed the news directly to us.

“We can confirm that Kathy Savitt has decided to leave the company. We appreciate her contributions to Yahoo over the past three years and wish her well,” said a spokesperson.

Savitt was at Yahoo for just over three years, joining in August 2012 with a marketing-only remit and then adding media to her responsibilities in 2014 after the departure of Henrique de Castro in January 2014. Before Yahoo she founded and was the CEO of Lockerz, a social commerce company.

Savitt’s jump is the latest in a string of departures at Yahoo, the once-formidable search giant that, under the leadership of Marissa Mayer, has been in the midst of a big turnaround plan to claw back revenues and market share in the face of competition from the likes of Google.

Other recent departures at the company have included Scott Burke, who had been the SVP of advertising data platforms and with the company for 10 years, also left in August to found a new genetics startup called Helix. And yesterday it was reported and confirmed by Yahoo that Dawn Airey, a seasoned media executive who had been leading Yahoo’s European business, had also left the company after two years.