Major Reorganization at Yahoo, COO Rosensweig To Leave

News from today’s Yahoo executive meeting confirms our earlier story that the company is getting a major reorganization in terms of structure and management. The company said in a press release that they will now align themselves around three key customer segments: “audiences, advertisers, and publishers.”

“The Internet is continuing to grow and evolve at a rapid pace, and we’re reshaping Yahoo! to be a leader in this transformation, just as we did successfully five years ago,” said Terry Semel, Yahoo chairman and CEO, in the release. “Our strategy capitalizes on big emerging trends and leverages our core strengths in search, media, communities and communications. We believe having a more customer-focused organization, supported by robust technology, will speed the development of leading-edge experiences for our most valuable audience segments.”

Yahoo said that their four key objectives will be expanding customer-centric culture, creating leading social media environments, leading in next-generation advertising platforms, and driving organizational effectiveness and scale.

Buried in the release is the announcement about Dan Rosensweig, Yahoo COO, who will depart from the company by the end of March.

These changes come as no surprise, particularly given Yahoo’s recent reputation for not having clear focus. The Brad Garlinghouse memo may have been the catalyst but it’s possible that this is only the ceremonious opening of the floodgates. If Yahoo is really serious about redirection, then no senior executive, particularly Semel, is safe from the chopping block.