Europe Yahoo chief joins exodus
Toby Coppel is expected to announce he is stepping down from his position as executive vice president and managing director of Europe and Canada.
Another high-level Yahoo executive is leaving the troubled search company.
Toby Coppel is expected to announce Thursday that he is stepping down from his position as executive vice president and managing director of Europe and Canada, according to a report by AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. The departure has reportedly been in the works for months and is unrelated to the recent announcement that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is stepping down once a replacement is found.
Coppel told Swisher that he has no firm plans for the future, other than welcoming his third child into the world very soon.
"I have been transitioning our European business, restructuring it and making it stronger, as Yahoo is moving to product development on a global platform," Coppel told Swisher.
Coppel joined Yahoo in 2001 and had been running its European operations for the past 18 months.
The departure is the latest in a months-long exodus of executives from the troubled search company after its rejection of Microsoft's unfriendly attempt to acquire Yahoo. Last week, Microsoft announced that it had hired Yahoo search executive Sean Suchter to be general manager of its Silicon Valley Search Technology Center.
After reporting a 64 percent drop in net income and warning that the advertising market is softening, Yahoo announced in October a layoff of at least 1,430 by the end of 2008. The cut follows another in which about 1,000 Yahoo employees lost their jobs in February.