30 April 2009 | Author: Katie Todd

Who the AOL's that? An internet services-staff shuffle

It seems to be the way of things that when a new CEO enters an established company, things change - and quickly. Staff is one of the key areas new CEOs turn to first and AOL's Tim Armstrong hasn't neglected this sacred duty.

News came today of the departure of AOL's head of sales, Greg Coleman, to be succeeded by Google's vice president of industry development and marketing Jeff Levick. Coleman only joined the internet provider in February this year and is now to depart, due to a poor performance in Q1 where revenue for advertising dropped 20 per cent - grave news from Armstrong's point of view.

So he brought in Levick, who is not only a Google whizz but also an old pal that worked beneath Armstrong back when the new CEO was also a regular at the Mountain View offices.

According to TechCrunch, Armstrong's original departure from Google started off a staff shuffle in North America, too. The empty position Armstrong left for a new head of ad sales caused a struggle to fill the chair - a position won by the chief of Google sales in the UK, Dennis Woodside. Once the seat was taken, competitor Sukhinder Singh Cassidy decided Google wasn't good enough and joined Accel Partners.

Now that AOL's got its new CEO and head of sales, how next might the internet service provider shake up its business? Will Armstrong bring in more of his own to kick the company back to life and, as illustrated above, will this cause yet more reverberations through the corporate internet sphere? In any case, Armstrong must act fast and with the right results if he wants to save the business from being dropped by Time Warner - so if shuffling his staff is the way he wants to do it, let's hope he turns up a few aces.

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