Sue Decker

Yes, in an interview with Reuters, Yahoo’s president seemed to repeat excuses most commonly applied to misbehaving friends and significant others.  Since the company’s situation is one in which statistics involving percentages or dollar signs could have been shown, it’s perhaps not the most encouraging sign.

Nonetheless, Decker explained, "This is a unique deal.  The market and the participants are still getting their arms around what this means.  It’s not a wholesale or even partial getting out of a business, and that’s where I think there’s been a lot of noise from various parties that are trying to characterize it as something different."

Also, "It’s our choice every day whether and how we might serve ads from Yahoo or Google, or a third party if we opened it up further."

We’ll see what happens, then.  At the moment, investors seem to be expressing their doubts by sending Yahoo down 1.5 percent very early in the trading day.

The deal will allow Wal-Mart to use Yahoo’s advertising platform to present new offers to online customers. Yahoo will be the exclusive portal to resell Walmart.com’s display inventory.

Yahoo will provide ad-serving, targeting, and inventory management to power ad pricing, targeting, delivery and reporting for Walmart.com. The site will later become a participant in AMP from Yahoo, an advertising management platform set to launch later this year.

During a keynote at the Advertising 2.0 conference in New York, Yahoo President Sue Decker said news coverage of the company’s Microsoft saga have ignored the work Yahoo is doing to improve the display ad market.

"Every day there’s another headline, and the headline has nothing to do with the products and services we’re bringing to market," Decker lamented.

She talked about Yahoo’s strategy saying, "First, we are developing the technology, products, and platforms that are designed to help advertisers find the right audiences and publishers find the right advertisers. Second, we are partnering with publishers to secure and monetize inventory that advertisers and agencies find desirable. And third, we are partnering with advertisers and agencies to channel demand to the right consumer."
 

So the difference between Yahoo’s chief financial officer and its president is $315,000, apparently, or 63 percent of that CFO’s salary.  What’s more, Elinor Mills reports that “Decker has been granted a stock option to purchase 300,000 shares at an exercise price of $26.20 each and 200,000 shares of restricted stock units.”

Finally, “Her annual target cash bonus will be 150 percent of her base salary, or $1.2 million, but her actual bonus for any year will be determined based on her job performance.”

Of course, considering how Yahoo’s done lately, that bonus is hardly a sure thing.  And there are bound to be examples of execs at other companies making far more money.  Still, the story is turning heads, and is at least interesting as a straightforward bit of news.

Meanwhile, Yahoo’s stock is down $.19 (or just .71 percent) for the day.

Yahoo Pulls On The Reorg Boots

Rumors of a Yahoo shakeup proved true, and much broader than just company president Sue Decker’s pal, Hilary Schneider, gaining at the expense of another executive’s job again. Greg Coleman had been the executive in charge of global sales, which included the search and display ad business.

Coleman was also the guy who gave Wenda Harris Millard a not-so-fond farewell in June 2007. “The industry has shifted and requires a different set of skills to take the business forward,” Coleman said of Millard at the time.

Now it’s Coleman who’s being shoved out the door, as more changes take place at Yahoo. Rafat Ali at PaidContent managed to score a copy of the internal Yahoo email about the shuffling of Yahoo’s sales deck.

Yahoo has created a new division called Global Partner Solutions (GPS). Schneider has been minted the new head of this group, which will develop international business while overseeing all of Yahoo’s US sales, marketing, and business development when it comes to advertising.

“Therefore, with the decision to create this new Global Partner Solutions unit under Hilary

That’s why she’s not CEO, says Robert Scoble. She gets to be president while Yang takes on two jobs, CEO and CTO, or looks for a good Semel replacement. Panama just isn’t working out.

Scoble’s got the inside line with the big tech-geek crowd, so I’m inclined to believe him. His main reason Decker isn’t CEO is that she doesn’t have a great relationship with anybody.

For example:

Advertisers who argue Google is much easier to use and performs better for them.

Geeks, the real gangbuster game-changers, who don’t want to work for Yahoo.

The Media in general – the creatives who don’t like advertisers.

Says Scoble, "I think Jerry Yang will have to hire a CEO out of the advertising industry, since that’s where Yahoo is bleeding the most right now…. The other lesson I take out of today’s news? Panama (Yahoo’s new advertising platform designed to compete with Google) is a failure. If it weren’t, Semel would be walking on water right now. That’s the real reason why Sue Decker isn’t in the CEO spot right now."

Without crawling into the mind of Jerry Yang and company, that seems as good an explanation as any.

Yahoo: The Next Day

Whatever fruit the new advertising system at Yahoo will bear won’t be of any help to Semel’s approval among investors. His long-expected departure from the CEO position finally took place.

It means Yang will wear two hats, as CEO and CTO, though he says the CEO job is his. Yang took the CTO role after Farzad Nazem abruptly resigned. Nazem’s departure had been described as planned out in advance, yet Yahoo had no one in position to step into the job.

Decker’s continued move up the Yahoo leadership ladder persists in intriguing us. Yang isn’t going to do a couple of combined jobs forever. We’re inclined to believe Decker has a shot at Semel’s old office, and her close confidant Hilary Schneider will be nearby, perhaps taking Decker’s current president’s role.

Yahoo had begun consolidating some of its duplicate services in recent months. That strategy looks necessary, but may go on hold as Yahoo finds people to take the CEO and CTO roles over the coming months.

We’re not convinced Yang will keep the CEO job for long. It’s not a fun job right now, and Wall Street has much more interest in Decker.

"Yahoo! has an incredibly bright future and I make this move with deep conviction and enthusiasm," Yang said on Yahoo’s official blog. He will need that enthusiasm on July 17, when Yahoo reports its quarterly numbers, if Panama still hasn’t made a big impact on the bottom line.

The company says that since Semel resigned as CEO and will continue as non-executive chairman, there will be no separation agreement with him.

"The Board and I have long talked about the importance of ensuring a smooth succession in Yahoo!’s senior leadership — and more recently, about the need for a leadership team committed to carrying Yahoo! through its multi-year transformation," said Semel.

"As we discussed my future goals and plans, I was clear in telling the Board of my desire to take a step back sooner rather than later."
A third of the shareholders seem to think that was a good idea too.

Semel continues, "This is the time for new executive leadership, with different skills and strengths, to step in and drive the company to realize its full potential — it is the right thing to do, and the right time is now."

At a shareholders meeting last week, the crowd was somewhat hostile, with many refusing to vote for Semel’s reinstatement as CEO and questioning whether his $71 million pay package last year matched his performance.

It looks like that got to him – or to somebody – but not enough to fully oust Semel.

Yahoo says Decker will assume leadership of Yahoo’s business operations, which include the Advertiser and Publisher Group along with the Yahoo! Network, Connected Life, and our International operations. The Technology Group as well as all Corporate Functions will report to Yang.

And Terry, most of the time, will report home for a margarita by the pool.