Zacharias quits, Yahoo! sets up leadership council

Yahoo! India announced on Monday the departure of its managing director, George Zacharias. Zacharias will be pursuing an entrepreneurial venture, and will remain with the company for the next four to six weeks to complete the transition.

Yahoo! India employees learnt of it on Monday afternoon when they listened to a scratchy telephonic address by Zacharias. The company announced that Keith Nilsson, V-P, international emerging markets, Yahoo!, who is based in Singapore, will step in to head the India team. No appointment has been made to replace Zacharias.

When contacted by agencyfaqs!, Zacharias said, “The time is right to do one’s own thing. We (the founding group) are in the process of incorporating a company in the IT space.” He said the venture would be unveiled in a few weeks; it will be a technology company, and not in the consumer Internet space.

Only a few days ago, agencyfaqs! had spoken to Zacharias, and in a detailed interview, he talked about how technology was the key to making advertising relevant to the point of personalisation to customers. He also said that portals must necessarily be technology companies, and not media companies.