5:44 p.m. | Updated Ross Levinsohn, the executive who served as Yahoo‘s interim chief, confirmed on Monday that he was leaving the tech company after being passed over to fill the spot permanently.
The departure of Mr. Levinsohn was not surprising, after Yahoo named former Google executive Marissa Mayer as its new leader.
In an e-mail to friends reviewed by DealBook, Mr. Levinsohn did not disclose his next steps. But he praised the company as having an “amazing brand” and described his short tenure as interim chief executive as “one of the best experiences of my career.”
His departure comes just two weeks after Ms. Mayer stepped into the role that Mr. Levinsohn assumed would be his own. Mr. Levinsohn ran Yahoo’s media, business development and sales operations and assumed the role of interim chief after Scott Thompson, Yahoo’s last chief executive, left in May amid questions that he had embellished academic credentials on his resume.
As recently as mid-June, Mr. Levinsohn was interviewing candidates for senior positions at Yahoo and telling them that the role of chief executive would be his, according to one person who was interviewed by Mr. Levinsohn but declined to be named because they still work with their current employer.
Mr. Levinsohn had already brought on a few senior hires, including Michael Barrett, a former Google executive who was named as Yahoo’s top advertising revenue manager.
He had also successfully brokered a settlement with Facebook over a patent fight that began under Mr. Thompson, an agreement that included an expanded content partnership.
Yahoo employees had been hoping that Mr. Levinsohn would stay with the company and help run Yahoo in tandem with Ms. Mayer.
“That would have been the best case scenario — Ross is great at running businesses and delivering value to shareholders and Marissa is a product visionary– together those two could be a powerful combination,” said one employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Here’s a note that Mr. Levinsohn e-mailed to friends:
I wanted to let you know that my time at Yahoo has come to an end. It has been an incredible journey for me and I could not be prouder of what we accomplished over the past few years helping define Yahoo as a leader in digital media and advertising. Yahoo is an amazing brand and company, and I leave knowing we did all we could to help inform and entertain more than 700 million users each month. Leading this company has been one of the best experiences of my career, but it is time for me to look for the next challenge.
Azam Ahmed contributed reporting.
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