Yahoo! has announced that three top executives are leaving the company in the latest management turmoil at the Internet portal.
Yahoo! said US operations chief Hilary Schneider, David Ko, senior vice president for audience, mobile and local, and vice president of media Jimmy Pitaro were leaving the Sunnyvale, California-based firm.
"Hilary Schneider has played a major role at Yahoo! in driving the company's strategies for content, online advertising and more," Yahoo! said in a statement.
"David Ko and Jimmy Pitaro have both made countless contributions to Yahoo! and have helped transform the company's mobile and content strategies in a constantly evolving business environment."
Yahoo! said it was looking for a new head of the Americas region and that Schneider will stay on to help with the transition.
The departures were first reported by Dow Jones-owned technology blog AllThingsD, which also published a memo to staff from Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz.
"Carol from the foxhole here," it began in a self-deprecating jibe.
Bartz said the three executives were leaving for "different reasons that suit their life."
"So everyone stay calm -- we have a good plan in place," Bartz said. "In fact, I'm more fired up than ever and can roll with the punches. Yahoo! is a great place."
According to AllThingsD, Schneider had wanted to leave for some time, but Bartz persuaded her to stay on.
Pitaro is leaving for another company while Ko may have lost out in a power struggle with Yahoo!'s new chief product officer Blake Irving, it said.
Bartz was brought in last year to turn around Yahoo!'s fortunes after the previous chief executive, co-founder Jerry Yang, rejected a takeover offer from Microsoft.
But Yahoo!'s stock price has remained largely stagnant and there has been an exodus of executives to other companies since Bartz took over in January 2009.
AllThingsD said some members of the Yahoo! board held an emergency meeting this week to discuss management issues, with speculation the firm will hire a second-in-command to Bartz to take over when her contract is up in 18 months.