Yahoo! drafts in Kelkoo chief for new North Europe post

Yahoo! Europe is understood to have promoted Glen Drury, managing director of Kelkoo UK, to the newly created position of vice-president for Northern Europe, effective immediately.

A Yahoo! spokeswoman refused to comment on the appointment, as the company is officially in a close period: but it is believed that while Drury will continue to run Kelkoo UK, he will give up his other role as vice- president of business operations for Yahoo! Europe, cars and travel.

Drury was the driving force behind the launch of the Yahoo! Cars site, yahoo.co.uk/ cars, a year ago (MW February 3, 2005). The site was the first major Yahoo!/Kelkoo joint project following Yahoo!’s â¬475m (&£326m) acquisition of the shopping comparison company in April 2004.

A number of Kelkoo executives now occupy senior positions within Yahoo!’s European operations.

Dominique Vidal, formerly chief executive of Kelkoo, is regional vice- president and managing director of Yahoo! Europe. Yahoo! is ramping up its marketing activities across Europe, both to consumers and to potential advertisers and agencies.

Last August, it named Mark Chippendale, former sales director at Sky Media, as regional vice-president of media sales for Yahoo! Europe, a newly created European role for the online media giant (MW August 25, 2005). Chippendale, a former Sky Media director of sales, reports to Dominique Vidal.