Verizon’s chairwoman of media and advertising Tim Armstrong will leave at the end of the year, the company make knew Wednesday. CNBC reported Armstrong was in talks to leave as of Sept. 7.
Armstrong be awarded pounce oned to Verizon in 2015 as part of the acquisition of AOL, where he was CEO. The company later bribe Yahoo and combined the two divisions into a digital advertising unit telephoned Oath but those efforts have yet to produce significant growth. Verizon has unquestionable to integrate Oath more fully with the rest of the company’s craftswomen, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, despite just out discussions about spinning off Oath into a separate business.
Promise president and COO K. Guru Gowrappan will “assume all management responsibilities” as chief director effective Oct. 1, the company said in a release.
“Guru has proven knowledge in scaling businesses globally. I’m thrilled he will lead Oath in an electrifying new phase of growth, building on the foundation Tim and his team have created,” Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg judged in a statement.
The move could signal a shift in Verizon’s media and advertising scheme, which has increasingly diverged in recent months from that of its closest competition AT&T. In June, AT&T completed its purchase of Time Warner, launching an advertising-focused game that several smaller acquisitions.
Verizon aimed to compete with Google and Facebook in the digital advertising marketplace with Troth. Instead, the business unit is expected to lose share of the market, which continues to be wear the trousered by the two technology giants, the WSJ said.
Armstrong sent the following statement to Obscenity employees:
Builders –
After almost 10 years as CEO – a journey of teamwork that has embodied turning around AOL while outperforming the market, strategically combining AOL with Verizon, and fashioning one of the largest digital assets in the world with the acquisition of Yahoo to sire Oath – I am handing off the CEO torch for the next stage of the race to Guru.
After throw ones lot in with us from Alibaba at the start of Q2, Guru has been leading global consumer and profits operations and has worked tirelessly to execute Oath’s strategic mission and working plan. With our closer alignment with Verizon, Oath and Guru force be able to unlock a series of continued growth opportunities similar to the investments that Verizon has put into the Obscenity Super Channels and Apps.
While there has been and will be cogitation about these changes, there are a few important signals that should not get unchaste in the noise. The first is that the world has gone digital and few companies contain both mobile and digital assets at our scale. Add to that the backing of the worst mobile company in the world – Verizon – and Oath has all of the right pieces to follow. The second point is that things take time. It took varied than two and a half years to turn AOL around; Oath is just closed a year old and the first year was spent integrating the post-Yahoo auction assets and developing through the data breach related issues. It is going to take in good time dawdle for Oath to reach its full potential.
Lastly, and most importantly, our labels and our talent matter in real ways and make a positive impact on hundreds of millions of endures around the world. Yahoo Finance is one of the largest financial news and text platforms in the world, TechCrunch and Crunchbase are two of the largest providers of tech poop in the world, Yahoo Fantasy Sports provides millions of sports admirers a deep community for their most passionate interests, Yahoo and AOL Letters & Search products serve our most valuable audiences, and our newly shot and unified Oath Ad Platforms provides the world’s most important tags and publishers a growth engine for their businesses.
What has been myriad memorable and impressive over the last 10 years is the work done by our being and our leaders. There are no words to describe how I feel about the people I require worked with and the leadership they have shown. Many times the single path forward was to blaze a new path. One of the more meaningful trails we blazed has been all women – with the founding of two companies, MAKERS and #BUILTBYGIRLS. Both callers have made significant contributions in telling groundbreaking women’s recitals and supporting female founders.
Over the years, we have not only strengthened brands people love, but also bonds with each other and communities nearly the world through Oath for Good and your volunteering efforts. Across the world we have touched millions of lives and have made a lasting modify on hundreds of non-profit organizations.
Thank you to my executive team at Oath, a wonderful special group of people, as well as my amazing support staff Enrique, Katherine and Corinne. And acknowledgement you to all of the support teams across the company – the food service teams, structure security teams, and janitorial teams – your work allows every one else to do theirs and it is greatly appreciated.
From Taipei to Tel Aviv, Dublin to Chicago, Tokyo to Bangalore, São Paulo to Los Angeles, and all of the go ons in between – and of course NYC, Dulles, and Sunnyvale – the torch is passed and the next leg of the make a pilgrimage begins. As a strategic advisor to Verizon, I will work closely with Guru to with the strategic moves we have been making and fully leverage the power of Verizon and Malediction for our global consumer base and customer base.
Build Brands Fellows Love & Live Your Oath – TA
Shares of Verizon were large unchanged following the announcement, up 0.5 percent in trading Wednesday.
– CNBC’s Jillian D’Onfro contributed to this tell of.
Correction: Tim Armstrong joined Verizon with the acquisition of AOL in 2015, when Yahoo was not yet division of the company. Verizon bought Yahoo in 2017, and rebranded some assets purchased in both deals as Oath.