Yahoo execs including Mayer are out in Verizon's new Oath leadership team
SAN FRANCISCO — Oath, the Yahoo-AOL creation owner Verizon will debut this year, plans to announce its leadership team Tuesday. And it does not include most of Yahoo's executive team.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will depart in June when Verizon Communications completes the $4.48 billion acquisition of Yahoo that led to the newly-formed company. Also out, according to a person familiar with the matter who is not authorized to speak about it publicly: Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Ken Goldman; Adam Cahan, senior vice president of product and engineering; Chief Revenue Officer Lisa Utzschneider; Enrique Muñoz Torres, senior vice president of search and advertising products; Ian Weingarten, senior vice president of corporate development and Partnerships; and Debra Berman, senior vice president of consumer marketing.
Mayer was expected to leave Yahoo after Verizon finalized the deal and Yahoo ceased to be an independent company, but it wasn't clear if she'd land with new owner Verizon. It was unlikely: During her tenure, the Internet company failed to realize an ambitious user and sales turnaround in the face of aggressive competition from Google and Facebook, eventually pressured by activist investors to sell its core assets. Two massive hacks under her watch, disclosed last year, further eroded the likelihood Verizon would take Mayer on board.
Mayer is expected to make $186 million from the Verizon deal, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing securities filings. The total payout is far greater than the golden parachute of $23 million Yahoo last month said she would receive as part of her planned exit.
AOL CEO Tim Armstrong will lead the newly-formed company, named in April. He is expected to be joined by two Yahoo execs — Jeff Bonforte, senior vice president of communications products, and Simon Khalaf, senior vice president of publisher products. Bonforte relaunched Yahoo Mail in October 2015. He left before Mayer joined in July 2012 to start Xobni, which was acquired by Yahoo in July 2013.
Armstrong, a former Google exec, is aiming to remake Verizon's online portfolio of brands — which includes AOL's The Huffington Post and Yahoo's News, Sports and Finance units, plus Tumblr — as a stronger competitor for global digital advertising, a revenue source designed to offset Verizon's slowing traditional telecom business.
Yahoo and AOL declined comment.
The reconstituted Oath team is tantamount to a house cleaning of Yahoo. By the time of her exit, Mayer will have served nearly five years as Yahoo's CEO. Goldman was Yahoo CFO for five years. Cahan oversaw a team that built Yahoo's mobile division from $11 million in 2012 to nearly $2 billion last year. Weingarten was heavily involved in negotiations with Verizon and in transition talks after the deal was announced in July 2016.
"In the summer of 2017, you can bet we will be launching one of the most disruptive brand companies in digital,” Armstrong told USA TODAY in an email in early April, when announcing the Oath name.
Business Insider reported last week that an executive shuffle was in the works.
Separately, Yahoo disclosed the size of its stake in Snapchat-parent Snap. Its 2.3 million common-stock stake is worth about $48 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. It also owns 2.3 million in preferred shares.
Related:
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Marissa Mayer's golden parachute is $23 million
Yahoo plus AOL, now called Oath
Under Oath? How Yahoo + AOL will change your web life
Verizon shaves $350 million from Yahoo price
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