Yahoo CEO Bartz Announces Exec. Departures, Speculation About Bartz’s & Yahoo’s Future Begins

Yahoo! today announced the departures of Hilary Schneider, Yahoo!’s EVP Americas Region; David Ko, SVP Audience, Mobile and Local, North America; and Jimmy Pitaro, Vice President of Media. Yahoo! continues to be committed to delivering the best digital experiences to consumers, leadership to advertisers and amazing scale and reach to partners. Hilary Schneider has played a major role at Yahoo! in driving the company’s strategies for content, online advertising and more. David Ko and Jimmy Pitaro have both made countless contributions to Yahoo! and have helped transform the company’s mobile and content strategies in a constantly evolving business environment. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

Raymond Stern will assume responsibility for David Ko’s teams and duties. The company is seeking a new head of the Americas region and expects to make that announcement before the end of the year. Schneider will stay on to help with the transition.

According to Bartz’s note to Yahoo employees each executive is leaving, “for different reasons that suit their life.” It’s not clear if all are leaving voluntarily.

AllThingsD, which has historically received leaked information from within Yahoo, has now started spinning out various merger and takeover scenarios involving AOL, News Corp., private equity and Alibaba, the Chinese site partly owned by Yahoo.

Then there’s Bartz’s future, which has become the subject of some recent speculation. Will she remain? Will she be replaced? And if so by whom?

Yahoo will report Q3 earnings on October 19. If they’re lackluster the pressure on Bartz will increase. Unfortunately I’m sure her status and the fate of Yahoo more generally will become one of the ongoing discussions now through end of the year.