New Delhi: Yahoo's Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh has quit the company just one day after CEO Marissa Mayer fired her COO Henrique De Castro.
Singh's departure comes in the wake of changes made to its media unit after the firing of Castro, who was Mayer's first major hire after taking over the company.
Soon after Castro's departure, an internal memo to employees also announced restructuring within the company, to include the media and editorial unit being taken over by CMO Kathy Savitt.
Yahoo poached Editor-in-Chief Jai Singh from his managing editor position at Huffington Post in 2011. Prior to that, he created CNET News.com in 1996.
While the firing of Henrique de Castro may save lots of moolah to the company, but it is not clear what prompted Singh's departure. Of course, losing your editorial leader as you ramp up your content strategy is hardly a promising sign.
Yahoo has spent heavily to hire people like tech journalist David Pogue and media personality Katie Couric. David Pogue has become a household name in tech criticism from his “State of the Art” column in New York Times along with multi-media contributions to PBS and CBS among others. Probably it's more likely that Yahoo's new direction under Mayer was not going well with Singh.
Reports suggest that media product head SVP of Homepage and Verticals Mike Kerns will now be the boss of both Ken Fuchs, head of entertainment, games and sports and Rob Barrett, who helms news and finance.
Overall, it seems like the departure of Singh should come as a big blow to Yahoo, which which has been looking to build up its credibility as a news site with a number of key hires.
