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, Bloomberg reported.
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."
...