Execs & Accounts for April 14, 2006

Yahoo has named Qi Lu to be senior vice president of engineering for search and search marketing. In his new role, Lu will head up development of Yahoo’s Web search and its monetization efforts. Lu will report to CTO and EVP Farzad Nazem.

Previously, Lu was a VP of engineering at Yahoo and was responsible for the technology behind Yahoo’s Search and Marketplace business unit.

Separately, the company promoted Ash Patel to chief product officer, to be in charge of global product development and report to COO Dan Rosensweig. Previously, Patel was SVP of platform engineering.

The New York Times Company promoted sales VP Lisa DeSisto to oversee Boston.com.

The Clio Awards has appointed an Internet Jury. Executive Jury Chair is Rei Inamoto, global creative director for AKQA in San Francisco. The more than two dozen-member panel also includes Jeff Benjamin of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Jason Marks of MTV Interactive and Richard Ting of R/GA.

Online marketing firm WebVisible named Patrick Marshall to its board. Marshall was group vice president of Verizon Information Services, which runs Superpages.com.

MIVA promoted James Harrell to VP and general manager of its small business division. He was previously director of software in the same unit. Earlier he was CTO and a founding partner of Copernicus Business Systems.

L.A. interactive agency Spacedog picked up Air Pacific USA as a client. The assignment includes online database marketing, search marketing, site maintenance and partnerships.