Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer is known for making bold decisions.
Today in Yahoo’s latest installment of executive drama, Mayer got rid of Chief Operating Officer Henrique de Castro.
Recode published a leaked internal Yahoo memo from Mayer to her employees, where she said “I made the difficult decision that our COO, Henrique de Castro, should leave the company.”
De Castro was Mayer’s first major hire since she assumed leadership of Yahoo in 2012. The two worked together at Google and she enticed him away with a four-year, $62 million pay package.
De Castro was the person in charge of Yahoo’s sales, which struggled during 2013. Research firm eMarketer’s Vice President Clark Fredricksen said that Yahoo lost its spot as the number 2 digital ad seller in the U.S. to Facebook for the first time in 2013, and that the company’s digital ad revenue continues to decline.
AdWeek predicted his departure months ago, and Business Insider published a story right after De Castro’s hire with quotes from ex-Googlers saying it was a mistake. Even though he didn’t finish out the full four years of the contract, De Castro is still leaving with a hefty chunk of his hefty compensation package.
High level execs that reported to De Castro, including Dawn Airey, John Devine, Ned Brody, and Rose Tsou, will now report directly to Mayer.
No replacement is named.
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