An air of resignation

What’s eating Yahoo? one of the oldest and most-revered internet companies (which began as Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web in the mid-90s, Jerry and David being the cofounders) in cyberspace, Yahoo is today in the throes of its biggest people’s crisis yet. Worldwide and at home. Consider: In mid-June, global CEO Terry Semel called it a day, saying it was time for a new leadership to step in. Before that, in end-2006, Xie Wen of Yahoo China quit barely 40 days after taking over at the helm.

And, back home, last fortnight George Zacharias became the third head in five years to exit Yahoo India, following in the footsteps of Deepak Chandnani and Neville Taraporewalla.

Clearly, Yahoo appears to have its hands full keeping its CEOs (and it’s also losing key senior people globally as well in India; in the same year that it lost Taraporewalla, another veteran Prasad Ram, Chief Technology Officer, resigned. Ram is currently with Google. Others to leave include two heads of content— one of whom was poached by AOL—and the head of Yahoo’s entertainment channel). Zacharias insists that the only reason he is leaving is to pursue his own entrepreneurial interests. “My 18 months with Yahoo India were fantastic.

Yahoo India is a highly innovative company and is doing very well in India. My decision to quit was a tough one,” he shrugs. Perhaps. But if the rumour mills grinding in Indian cyberspace are to be believed, Zacharias could not see eye to eye with the global board, which wasn’t quite in agreement with the strategy being pursued by the Indian leadership.

That may not come across in the results—which, according to Zacharias, are impressive. “Yahoo in India is the largest in terms of mail and instant messenger and is #2 in terms of search. It has a high reach among online users which should be in excess of about 20 million. Yahoo India expects to double its ad revenues this year,” says the former CEO. The competition—in a large part MSN and Google—agree.

Says a senior executive at a global portal with an India presence: “Yahoo India has been aggressive in the market.” But the problem it would seem isn’t in the market but in the workplace. According to the executive at the competing portal: “The company’s management issues, both globally and in India, are beginning to come to the fore. No longer do people get excited when they get a job offer from Yahoo”.

The India operations will now be headed by Keith Nilsson, Vice President (International Emerging Markets) and based out of Singapore. When BT contacted Yahoo India, a spokesperson responded that the company is in a transition phase and hence unable to respond to queries. That’s also the case globally with co-founder Jerry Yang, who’s now at the helm, setting himself a target of 100 days to get Yahoo back on track. Hopefully, it shouldn’t take longer than that back home.