Less than three years after taking on the lead role at Yahoo!, CEO Carol Bartz has been fired by the board.
Yahoo! Chief Financial Officer Timothy Morse has been appointed acting CEO immediately and a management team tasked to help him with carrying out the company’s “day-to-day” operations while he carries out both CEO and CFO roles while a permanent CEO is being decided.
According to CNet analyst Larry Magid, interviewed by the BBC, Yahoo! had hoped under Bartz’ leadership it would improve its competitiveness against the likes of Google and Facebook.
“She hasn’t done anything to change the company’s fortunes, and they are still anxious to find a leader who can move them up,” Magid said.
“Facebook is way ahead, and now even Google is way ahead of Yahoo in social networking.”
Both companies also enjoy more revenue from advertising.
Upon the news that broke last night of Bartz’ instant departure, Yahoo! stocks rose more than 6% to US$13.72.
Yahoo! Chairman of the Board Roy Bostock said the company believes it can still achieve “enormous growth”. “Our primary objective is to leverage the company’s leadership and current business assets and platforms to execute against these opportunities,” Bostock said.
“We have talented teams and tremendous resources behind them and intent to return the company to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation.
Bostock said Bartz had entered the company at a critical time of transition and “against a very challenging macro-economic backdrop”.
According to The Stock Market Watch, Bartz sent all Yahoo! employees an email saying she had received a phone call telling her of the Board’s decision.
"I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's chairman of the board," Ms Bartz said.
A challenging role
Bartz was first hired as CEO of Yahoo! in January 2009, taking the place of Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang, who stepped down following criticism from investors regarding Yahoo!’s stagnant stock price.
She soon made waves, replacing executives and removing 675 jobs (at the time 5% of Yahoo!’s workforce) to bring Yahoo! costs down. A number of Yahoo! sites were also removed.
Bartz is credited with instigated the search engine deal with Microsoft’s Bing.
At the end of 2009, Bartz had criticised her own role as CEO, saying : ”It was a little tougher internally than I think I had anticipated. I did move fast, but this is a big job.”
Bartz first made an impact on the technology industry as CEO of Autodesk, the software maker she was attributed with turning from a PC software maker to the leader in computer-aided design software.
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