San Francisco – Arun Sarin, the Indian-born former chief executive of Vodafone has been tipped as the frontrunner to take the top seat at the internet search giant Yahoo.n November, Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s embattled co-founder said he would step down from the post of CEO after a tumultuous reign of 18 months at the top. Yang, who successfully blocked a potential $47.5 billion or $33 per share buyout bid from Microsoft Corp. earlier this year and was the key to Yahoo’s success in making it one of the world’s most popular websites, stepped into Terry Semel’s shoes as Yahoo CEO in June 2007, when Semel resigned following his failure in his struggle to streamline the company’s operations and boost revenue and profitability.
However, Yang fared no better as the failed Microsoft deal evoked strong criticism from investors and technology analysts whose chorus grew louder as Yahoo’s shares nose-dived. Later it became imminent that Yang would step down when he failed to boost the ailing internet giant’s earnings as rival Google Inc. abandoned a search advertising partnership amid regulatory concerns and Yahoo’s months-long talk with Times Warner Inc. about combining the AOL unit fell through.
Yang also came under heavy criticism for deciding to lay off at least 10 percent of Yahoo’s workforce, some 1,400 employees, because of the weak economy.Last month, Yang said it was high time to “transition the CEO role and our global talent to a new leader” but will “continue as CEO until the board selects a new CEO.”