Updated 8.22 p.m. E.S.T.
She wasn’t even there for two full years, and she’s gone.
Yahoo’s brash and outspoken CEO Carol Bartz has been ousted, according to AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher. Yahoo’s Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse has been named interim CEO, Swisher reports.
Bartz, 63, had been widely criticized for her leadership of Yahoo, which has been trying to find its feet for many years in a world remade by social media.
The nadir of her tenure at Yahoo came in June when a shareholder piped up during a conference call and called for Bartz to resign after the company’s lackluster performance under her tenure.
The shareholder noted that Yahoo’s board had been searching for a successor.
Shares of Yahoo ticked up in after-hours trading on the news.
The shareholder’s June tirade went on for quite some time, and was posted by TechCrunch for all the world to hear. Bartz could be heard at the end of the recording saying lamely: “You’re welcome, and thanks for your opinion, the bloggers’ opinions and the rumors. What else? Wonderful. That was certainly a downer.”
It’s a brutal ending for a charismatic leader who made her name by transforming the Marin County design software firm Autodesk into a powerhouse company.
Swisher reports that Bartz signed off by sending off a mass resignation e-mail letting everyone know that she’d been classily fired on the phone by Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock.
“I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward,” according to a note she apparently authored, posted up at AllThingsD.
Yahoo subsequently issued a press statement with the news. The company also named a Leadership Council to support Morse as it hires headhunters to find a replacement for Bartz.
Its members are listed below:
— Michael Callahan, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary;
— Blake Irving, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer;
— Ross Levinsohn, Executive Vice President, Americas;
— Rich Riley, Senior Vice President & MD, EMEA Region;
— Rose Tsou, Senior Vice President, APAC Region.Co-founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, will each continue as Chief Yahoo and will provide counsel to Tim and the Executive Leadership Council.
