California – Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) confirmed on Monday that Chief Marketing Officer Kathy Savitt is leaving the company to join start-up STX Entertainment as head of digital operations in Los Angeles.
Savitt worked for American Outfitters and Amazon before joining Yahoo at 2012 to led important properties like Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. She arrived at the company at a time when Yahoo was losing meaningful atraction with advertisers and reverse its losses in market share to Google Inc. and Facebook Inc.
“We appreciate her contributions to Yahoo over the past three years and wish her well,” Yahoo spokeswoman Becky Auslander wrote.
During her years in charge, Ms. Savitt helped recruit star journalists; led efforts to generate more original online videos and online magazines focused on topics of interest; and organized annual events for ad executives and prospective clients.
“Savitt’s expertise in the digital space is unparalleled and STX Digital will become a new and disruptive force in the entertainment industry and allow it to tell compelling stories to a global audience” said STX’s CEO Robert Simonds in a statement.
Yahoo’s unprecedented fall
But while Ms. Savitt has done her part to raise Yahoo’s profile, her efforts have not been equally successful in the company’s revenue which fell in four out of the past five quarters. Its shares have slipped about 40% from their 52-week high of $52.62. They are falling behind Google, Facebook, and, for the first time, Twitter Inc.
Yahoo has been experiencing recent exodus for the last months as previous senior vice president of advertisement, Scott Burke, and head of Europe units Dawn Airey, also recently left the company.
Source: Yahoo News