Yahoo Losing Its CTO on June 3

Yahoo's Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh will be leaving the company June 3.

In a statement distributed via email, Yahoo announced that its Chief Technology Officer Aristotle “Ari” Balogh will be leaving the company on June 3 for personal reasons. Yahoo says it expects to name a replacement in the coming weeks, with Balogh available to help with the transition until June 3. Some industry reports have Yahoo courting former Microsoft executive Blake Irving for the position.

“While Yahoo has become a family to me in many ways over the last two years, I have a situation with my own family that is difficult and has driven me to make some changes in my life,” Balogh said in the statement distributed by Yahoo. “This job was my dream job, which makes this decision very hard.”

Balogh cam to Yahoo from VeriSign in February 2008. As new CEO Carol Bartz began her turnaround efforts at the beleaguered Internet company, she combined a large number of technology and product groups into a single unit headed by Balogh, meaning Balogh rides herd on Yahoo’s advertising and global consumer products.

Industry watchers generally feel Yahoo doesn’t need a management shakeup just as Bartz’ efforts to turn Yahoo around are picking up steam; however, the company seems to have cleared major hurdles in its long-term partnership with Microsoft, which well see Microsoft’s Bing search engine handling the back end of search queries while Yahoo continues to “innovate” the user-facing search experience.