Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz has commissioned searches for several high-level executives amid a management shuffle at the Internet company, a person familiar with the matter said.
The reorganization would be Bartz’s first significant shakeup to bolster Yahoo’s position in the online advertising market after she took over as CEO from co-founder Jerry Yang last month.
Yahoo is seeking new ways to revive growth under Bartz, the former CEO of Autodesk Inc. Yahoo faces a slowdown in the online advertising market at the same time as Google steps up competition in areas such as graphical-display ads. Microsoft Corp. is also going after Yahoo’s employees, hiring at least three Internet-search executives since November.
Bartz assumed the CEO job after Yang spurned a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft last year. Yahoo posted a loss for the fourth quarter of $303.4 million, and profit fell in 10 of the 11 quarters before that.
Yahoo may announce the reorganization as early as next week, the AllThingsDigital blog reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Yahoo spokesman Brad Williams declined to comment on what he called “rumors and speculation.”
Talent War
Yahoo said this month that Chief Communications Officer Jill Nash would leave after a two-year stint with the company. Susan Decker, who was president, stepped down after Bartz was named CEO in January.
Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, has hired several Yahoo search executives after takeover negotiations fell through last year. Microsoft named Yahoo’s Qi Lu as president of its online services group in December and hired Sean Suchter from Yahoo the previous month. This month, Microsoft hired Larry Heck, who oversaw a Yahoo lab that developed search and advertising algorithms.
A reorganization by Bartz would come after a shuffle orchestrated by Yang last June. At the time, Yang created three teams that reported to then-president Susan Decker. Those moves centralized consumer-product development and created a companywide strategy group.
Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, California, rose 16 cents to $12.14 on Feb. 20 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares are little changed this year.
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