Yahoo Reorg Coming as More Execs Fly Coop

It’s been fully 10 months since the last reorg from Yahoo, a company that shakes up its executive ranks almost as often as chronic reshuffler Microsoft. Even setting aside its habitual restructuring, that’s an eternity in Yahoo-time. Way back in August 2007 — when it named Hilary Schneider to lead the new Global Partner Solutions unit — the company was still basking in praise for Panama, new CEO Jerry Yang had yet to complete his 100-day evaluation, and the thought an imminent deal with either Microsoft or Google would have seemed outlandish to say the least.

Given all that’s come to pass, it’s probably appropriate that top brass has now decided to reassess Yahoo’s reporting structure.

Yahoo is so far mum on the details of its impending realignment, reported today in The Journal. However it seems the new regime won’t have a profound impact on the company’s ad products or advertiser relationships. Rather it will consolidate numerous products, such as mail, search and homepage operations, into a global unit. President Sue Decker is apparently driving the changes in the interest of facilitating better communication between domestic and overseas product groups.

Decker reportedly stepped up the pace of planning for the new division after the departure last week of Network Division EVP Jeff Weiner. She’d better hurry, since the general impression right now is that executive staffers are storming the exits. At least eight mid- to senior-level execs either have left or are expected to leave in short order. They include Dr. Usama Fayyad, the company’s EVP of research and strategic data solutions; Jeremy Zawodny, a long-time technology lead who bolted to join Craigslist as chief technology officer; Communities and Front Doors SVP Brad Garlinghouse (of peanut butter manifesto fame); Qi Lu, EVP of engineering for the search and advertising technology group; search group SVP Vish Makhijani; and Flickr founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield.