New Yahoo Marketing Exec Shares Common Thread with CEO, CMO

Software firm NetApp is becoming a common branch in Yahoo’s marketing team family tree. Not only do Yahoo’s recently-hired CEO and CMO have connections to the enterprise application firm, the new global brand manager does as well.

Agency veteran Penny Baldwin, Yahoo’s new SVP, global integrated marketing and brand management, has years of experience managing brands including NetApp, the firm where her new Yahoo boss recently held a marketing title.

Baldwin’s role is newly-created, according to a company spokesperson who told ClickZ News the new position is “a priority” for Yahoo CMO Elisa Steele. Baldwin will report to Steele and has already begun her work out of Yahoo’s Sunnyvale digs.

Most recently running her own marketing consulting outfit, Baldwin was with Young & Rubicam until March of this year, according to her LinkedIn profile. In her new position, she is charged with driving Yahoo’s global brand through brand marketing, management, corporate messaging, integrated marketing, and advertising. The company would not go into further detail as to what those tasks might entail. However, the spokesperson indicated to ClickZ that marketing departments with those specialties will report to Baldwin.

Baldwin was managing partner with Young & Rubicam and Y&R Brands from 2002 through earlier this year, and previously held senior executive positions with Arnold, McCann Erickson, and Ogilvy & Mather. According to a Yahoo company statement, she has experience heading up global marketing teams on behalf of clients in industries including technology, finance, travel, wireless, and entertainment. She’s dealt with brands such as Microsoft, HP, Wells Fargo, Palm, and NetApp.

Yahoo named Elisa Steele, former SVP of corporate marketing at NetApp, as its new chief marketer in March. The firm’s CEO Carol Bartz, hired in January, serves on NetApp’s board of directors.

In hiring Steele, Bartz indicated a desire to centralize Yahoo’s marketing teams and strategy. Bartz has also signaled to company observers that Yahoo’s brand proposition is less than clear to consumers.