Yahoo Audiences SVP Dossett Leaves for Adventure Travel Startup

In what seems a perfect fit given his passion for mountain climbing, former SVP of Yahoo Audience Experiences Jeff Dossett has taken a CEO position with AdventureLink, an online booking system for adventure travel.

Dossett departs Yahoo only about seven months after he became SVP of audience experiences for North America at Yahoo. Before that brief stint, Dossett was with Microsoft as executive producer and general manager of MSN in the United States. He also served as CEO of Carpoint and general manager of MSN HomeAdvisor.

Based in Los Angeles and only about three months old, AdventureLink helps connect travel agents with people interested in outdoors adventure trips. AdventureLink Chairman and Founder Kelly Tompkins, in a statement announcing the hiring of Dossett, pointed to Dossett’s many outdoors accomplishments. “I love the fact that Jeff is a risk taker and an accomplished mountain climber, having summited Everest twice,” Tomkins said. “But more than that, as an executive, he has demonstrated tremendous leadership both at Microsoft and, most recently, Yahoo.”

In the hiring announcement, Samit Varma of Anthem Venture Partners said he and his colleagues were “working to get Jeff on board for several months.” The statement also points out that Richard Bangs, host of the PBS series “Adventures with Purpose” and a member of AdventureLink’s board of directors, was instrumental in the choice of Dossett as the new CEO.

Dossett, in the statement, said the job offer presented was a unique opportunity that will allow him to mix his enthusiasm about outdoors adventure with his competitive business skill. He said he wants to make AdventureLink “the world’s largest, most effective, online global distribution and reservation system for adventure travel.”