The Googlization of AOL‘s upper management ranks continues.
On Tuesday, AOL, the struggling Internet unit of Time Warner, announced it had hired Shashi Seth as its senior vice president of global advertising products. Mr. Seth worked at Google in a variety of senior roles, including product lead for Web search and head of monetization efforts at YouTube. He left Google in June 2008 to become chief revenue officer at Cooliris, a closely held startup.
Mr. Seth will be responsible for building AOL’s advertising technologies and will report to Jeff Levick, president of global advertising strategy. Mr. Levick himself is a recent recruit from Google, as is Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chief executive.
Time Warner hired Mr. Armstrong in March and plans to spin off AOL into an independent unit by the end of the year. Mr. Armstrong has said he wants to refocus AOL around online content, display advertising and a handful of other businesses. That is likely to put AOL in a collision course with larger rivals, including Yahoo and, to a lesser extent, Google.
“As we move forward on our strategy of becoming the world’s largest provider of display advertising, Shashi will play a critical role in creating the best products in the business for our advertising partners,” Mr. Levick said in a press release.
With Mr. Seth’s appointment, AOL appears to be making good on its promise to beef up its Silicon Valley presence. Mr. Seth will be based at AOL’s Mountain View, Calif., campus, which is headed by another recent hire, Brad Garlinghouse, a former Yahoo executive. At the time of Mr. Garlinghouse’s hiring, Mr. Armstrong spoke of wanting to “replant the AOL flag in Silicon Valley.”
Comments are no longer being accepted.