Yahoo CEO on 'third phase,' not peanut butter

We’re aligning our business around two key customer groups — our audience and our advertisers and publishers — supported by innovative technology. We’re creating three operating groups — Audience, Advertiser & Publisher, and Technology — to increase our strategic focus and accountability, speed decision-making, emphasize scalable platforms and improve resource allocation…

By having our Audience Group 100% focused on creating great user experiences, we’ll also be able to create the greatest amount of value for advertisers, both on and off the Yahoo! network. What does that mean? We intend to expand our global advertising network, creating marketplaces on both Yahoo!’s network as well as across the entire Internet. We’ve already begun demonstrating our value as an ad network for search affiliates and through announced arrangements with eBay, the newspaper consortium and Vodafone. We’ll be able to connect customers with advertisers on valuable properties elsewhere on the web.

As far as our leadership team, I’ve asked our chief financial officer, Sue Decker, to head our new Advertiser & Publisher Group. She already recently expanded her role to take on our current Marketplaces business unit (which will become part of her new group), tapping into her deep expertise in media, publishing and advertising. An expert on far more than financials, Sue has been a terrific contributor to our business strategy. She’s one of the best executives around and the ideal person to fill this critical new role. We’re currently recruiting the leader for our Audience Group.

Want to lead Yahoo’s Audience Group? Semel called out:

Let me stress that we’re organizing the company for growth and are continuing to hire great talent (careers.yahoo.com).