Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2012/08/28/yahoo_hires_chief_marketing_officer/

Troubled! Yahoo! tries! to! keep! staff! sweet! with! free! nosh!

CEO du jour also bags ex-Amazon exec

By Brid-Aine Parnell

Posted in On-Prem, 28th August 2012 10:42 GMT

Yahoo!'s shiny new CEO Marissa Mayer has nabbed a former Amazon exec for the job of chief marketing officer at the ailing web firm.

Kathy Savitt, founder of social commerce startup Lockerz and also a former exec at American Eagle Outfitters, will start the job next month, Mayer said in a canned statement.

Mayer is attempting to shake things up at Yahoo!, no doubt in the hopes that a) the company might start earning some serious money and b) she can stay in the chief's post a tad longer than her predecessors. The ex-Googler, Yahoo!'s fifth chief exec in the last three years, has been taking on new people after the departures of top Yahoo!s like Ross Levinsohn.

Savitt will be leaving her seat as CEO at Lockerz, which lets online shoppers share links to deals they've spotted, but she'll have the role of chairman of the board over there to fill in her spare time.

"We are very excited to welcome Kathy to Yahoo!," Mayer said. "Her extensive experience in building and refining well-loved consumer brands like Amazon, American Eagle Outfitters and Lockerz will be incredibly valuable as we define Yahoo!'s future."

Despite the fact that money's been tight over at Yahoo! for the last four years, its share price more than halving as it struggles with new competition online from the likes of Google and Facebook, the firm appears to have a bit of loose change at the moment to spend on free food for its staff.

Yahoo! has started handing out free chow to workers at the Sunnyvale and New York offices, perhaps in an effort to improve staff motivation after the revolving CEO door insecurities and rounds of extensive layoffs.

The web firm has had six big redundancy programmes in the last four years, with the latest taking out 2,000 staff of the 14,100 left at the firm. Those cuts are expected to save the company $375m every year.

Yahoo! told The Reg that it was "trialling" the free food for workers and hoped to roll it out across all its offices, but the firm wouldn't comment on how much it would cost the biz.

"The initiative is part of how Yahoo! looks after its talent," a spokesperson said. ®