Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) has lost another high-roller exec. Jacki Kelley, the former VP of sales strategy, has announced she is leaving to work at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO) as media sales EVP. This is yet another large loss for Yahoo, which has seen many high-profile executive departures in the last year, as well as a complete makeover of the top folks in charge. I'm still befuddled on why former CEO Terry Semel is chairman of the company to be honest.It's unclear whether Kelley was pushed out or chose to leave to pursue another opportunity, but in reading the company's exit message to Yahoo employees, the tone makes one think she was gently nudged to exit the doors. The advertising strategy team is being called into question here as one of the web's largest properties still can't catch market leader Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) when it comes to monetizing efforts built around web advertising.
Is Yahoo going to cede the advertising race to Google (outside of display advertising) one of these days and just integrate the competitor's search backbone into its overall property to focus on different types of internet advertising? That's been bandied about in the last few months as the initial furor over Yahoo!'s Project Panama has quieted down to a whimper in the face of being extremely late to market and underwhelming, given Google's continuing search advertising enhancements.
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