Yahoo Layoff Reports: 40-60 Jobs Cut In India; Finance, Toolbar, HotJobs

Official word in from Yahoo: ”We got the notification on the layoffs yesterday, and have completed the process.” Yahoo has declined to comment on specifics. 

Original Story: Wednesday was or is layoffs day at Yahoo, depending on where you are based. The company cut around 1500 jobs worldwide, and India appears to have been affected too. I haven’t yet heard from anyone who has been laid off, but there are updates on twitter from some who have retained their job. A roundup of the reports, some of which are unconfirmed (we’ve contacted Yahoo India for a confirmation). Here goes:

– Bangalore job cuts: 3% jobs cut in Bangalore with 4 months severnce according to an unconfirmed SAI report. Around 40 jobs according to the Indian Express, 50 jobs according to ToI, and 60 as per Manorama Online.

– A possibly unrelated move, but ToI reports that Yahoo India’s Chief Information Officer Vishwanathan Krishnamurthy has quit.

– Finance outsourced: “Entire Finance group will be outsourced to an Indian vendor. Some will stay an additional 6 months for transistion.” Via SAI

– Toolbar engineering moved to Bangalore: “Yahoo toolbar entire engineering and QA team in US are got, all moved to Bangalore. Via SAI

– HotJobs team has been wound up: some have been redeployed, and some have been asked to leave. Via ToI

You can follow the Yahoo layoff updates on Twitter here…many of them are from people who’re looking to hire, or offer best wishes and support.

Update: Read Jerry Yang’s letter to the yahoos.

Industry Moves: OnMobile Appoints President, COO; Motorolas LLoyd Mathias Moves On

Lloyd Mathias, Senior Director for Sales and Distribution (Mobile Devices) for India and South-West Asia at Motorola has put in his papers. Mathias has been with Motorola since 2005. There’s nothing on where he’s planning to join, but Exchange4Media reports that it could be in the telecom space. Mathias joined Motorola from Pepsico in August 2005.

Sanjay Uppal has been appointed President and Chief Operating Officer of mobile VAS company OnMobile Global. He joins from Citrix Systems, where he was Vice President of Application Networking. He will be responsible for managing the business operations of the company, initially excluding strategic new sales, strategic new products and M&A. 

ValueFirst To Raise $5-8 Million Says CEO Vishwadeep Bajaj; Apurva Kumar Joins From Naukri As COO

Update: I spoke to Valuefirst CEO Vishwadeep Bajaj, who confirmed Kumars appointment. Kumar is joining with a stake in the company, but Bajaj declined to elaborate on the details. Kumars mandate will be to “scale the business, and launch new verticals, particularly given his experience with Shiksha.”

Bajaj has said that Valuefirst will be announcing their funding - of between $5-8 million, within a couple of weeks. Our sources had told us otherwise, and we stand corrected. He declined to disclose the investors (yet). The funding will be used to expand the company to new domains, in particular - to Voice and the Internet. ValueFirst had revenues of around $10 million last fiscal, and have set themselves an ambitious targest of $25 million this fiscal.

Bajaj said that they don’t see ValueFirst as just a bulk SMS company, but an Enterprise Mobility company - “We mobile-enable the process. We don’t just sell a pipe, but integrate with the CRM app and SAP, whatever the legacy, and move data over the mobile network.” The company will invest the money into internal processes and IT systems. The company has an international presense in the Middle East, UK, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan, and intends to expand into developing markets where Internet penetration is low, and mobile is the base.

Original story: Apurva Kumar, VP & National Head for Mobility, Ad Sales and Investments has left Info Edge (Naukri.com) to join ValueFirst, a Mobile Data Services, company Chief Operating Officer. Kumar will be reporting to CEO Vishwadeep Bajaj. Kumar was with Info Edge for around 3 years, during which period the company went in for a public listing.  (Right: Apurva Kumar at the MediaNama Launch Seminar & Mixer)

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Hemant Sachdev Quits Bharti To Join Microsoft India

Update: A Bharti spokesperson informed us that Sachdev will be serving out his notice period at Bharti till the end of October. His replacement hasn’t been finalized yet.

Original Story: Hemant Sachdev, the Group Director for the Bharti Group has joined Microsoft India as the Joint Managing Director for its consumer and online business. Microsofts consumer business covers software, windows mobile, MSN and search. We’ve contacted Airtel for details on who’s taken over from him, or who is currently handling his mandate at Bharti. Details on Bharti’s organizational structure here.

Looks like Sachdev will be heading in India, Consumer and Online International, a sales and marketing organization that Microsoft has created, covering 22 countries. Also important in this context, is the move of Maya Hari, former head of Consumer Marketing for Microsoft, who left to take up entreprenurship - she’s launched an e-commerce portal Stylkist.com

Mohit Hira, Director-Marketing At Indiatimes, Puts In His Papers

After well over four months of will-he or won’t-he (see the comments to this post), Mohit Hira, Director (Marketing) has decided to quit Indiatimes (Times Internet Ltd). We’d heard about it yesterday at the IAMAI MVAS conference, and Afaqs has reported the same, albeit unconfirmed. 

Now our sources have told us he is leaving, saying that Hiras notice period ends this week. However, Hira has declined comment - neither a confirmation nor a denial. Other industry sources say that Hira’s move was never really in doubt - we had asked, repeatedly, over the past couple of months and both Hira and Indiatimes denied it. As one comment on this post put it, when we had reported on Sunil Rajshekhar joining as President and COO of Indiatimes - “What’s not reported is the resignation Vineet Jain is refusing to accept - one of their most valued people has put in papers over two months ago. it’s an open secret and they don’t know how to handle it.”

Hira joined the Times Group in 2003 from Contract Advertising, where he was Head of its Delhi and Kolkata ops. Aside of Indiatimes, in the Times Group, he has been the Brand Head for Times Foundation, Navbharat Times and The Economic Times, Delhi, as well as its Resident Editor for ET.

Industry Moves: Motorola Handset Div CEO; Sony Ericsson India President

Motorola’s struggling handset division business has a new CEO: Sanjay Jha has been appointed co-CEO of Motorola, and the CEO of the Mobile Devices business. The 45 year old, India-born Jha, who was previously the COO of Qualcomm, will have the grueling task of turning around the loss making unit, which will be de-merged in the second half of 2009. Motorola has consistently lost marketshare after failing to find a replacement for the MotoRazr; in fact, from an Indian context, there were reports that Videocon was in talks for acquiring their handset division.

Anil Sethi has been appointed to the newly created position of President and Region Head of Sony Ericsson India. He joins after 8 years at Sony Canada, where he was SVP for Broadcast & Business Solutions and Systems Integration. He has been involved with Sony India before - establishing and managing Sony’s first production facility in India. Sethi has been involved in other assignments in the Sony Group at senior business roles, in Europe, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Web18 CMO Neeraj Sanan Puts In His Papers

Neeraj Sanan, Chief Marketing Officer of Web18, the Internet company from the Network18 group, has confirmed to MediaNama that he has put in his papers. Sanan will be moving to back to Delhi, but didn’t disclose details of his next appointment, or whether he will continue to be in the Digital Media space.

He had joined Web18 in August last year from Dabur, where he was the Deputy General Manager (Marketing) for their consumer care division. Sanan has around 11 years of experience in sales and marketing, and has worked with Joyco India, ICI India, Asian Paints and Steel Authority of India Ltd.