Jerry Yang Mails Fellow Employees

Kara Swisher over at BoomTown has managed to get her hands on the company memo sent out by former Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang following yesterday’s announcement that the Yang would be stepping back from his position as Chief Executive.

As is the norm, Yang sent out an all lower case email to employees after the news hit the wires yesterday afternoon. However, while it seems like the general consensus is that Jerry’s decision to leave has something to do with the company’s run of bad luck in the last year. Yang’s memo spells out a different story.

Yang explained to his fellow employees that last June, the board requested he assume the role of CEO to restructure and reposition the company. Yang continues on to say that he has had ongoing discussions with the board about locating a successor and that he and the board believes the time is right to appoint a new CEO who can take the company to the next level.

“last june, i accepted the board’s request that i assume the ceo role to restructure and reposition the company as a whole in order to more effectively meet the fast-changing needs of both users and partners. since taking on the ceo role, i have had an ongoing dialogue with the board about succession timing. thanks in large measure to your tireless efforts, we have created a more open, competitive yahoo! and we believe the time is now right to transition to a new ceo who can take the company to the next level.”

Yang went on to say that Yahoo! was a significantly different company than it was 18 months ago and he strongly believed that, having transformed its platform and better aligned finances, the right CEO had a unique position to take ownership of the critical decisions facing the company.

“i strongly believe that having transformed our platform and better aligned costs and revenues, we have a unique window for the right ceo to take ownership over the next wave of mission-critical decisions facing the company.”

The move certainly brings about some big questions about where Yahoo! is headed over the coming months and years. Yahoo! has yet to announce its next CEO. We’ll be sure to update when we hear anything.

Check out BoomTown for the complete memo.