Recession-triggered personnel shuffles are causing all sorts of people to turn to LinkedIn. Somewhat ironically, big changes are now taking place inside that company, too, with the current CEO leaving, the old one regaining his title, and a former Yahoo joining the picture.
Dan Nye is the man who’s on his way out. Nye took over the CEO role from Reid Hoffman in early 2007, and it’s unknown why he’s vacating the spot. Compete numbers indicate that LinkedIn has experienced year-over-year growth approaching 140 percent, and all sorts of upgrades and launches have gone well enough.
Reid Hoffman
Still, Reid Hoffman does have the more impressive resume. Even while serving as LinkedIn’s chairman and president of products, he sat on the boards of directors at Mozilla, Six Apart, and Kiva.org. Then there’s his previous experience to consider: stints at PayPal and Apple, in addition to being LinkedIn’s founder and CEO for its first four years.
Finally, we mustn’t forget the new guy: Jeff Weiner, who was the executive vice president of Yahoo’s Network Division until June. Jessica Guynn reports, “The length of Weiner’s tenure has not been determined. Weiner, who will report to Hoffman, has been mentioned as a possible candidate to replace Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. He has more than 14 years of consumer Web experience, holding key leadership roles at Yahoo. It is not clear whether he is being groomed for a permanent role at LinkedIn.”
Stay tuned for more announcements and upheaval, then.
