AOL European CEO Dunne leaves
Dana Dunne, AOL’s European CEO, has left the company in an organisational restructuring led by new global CEO Tim Armstrong, new media age can reveal.
Dunne, who joined the internet giant in January 2007, has left following changes to his role as part of a 100-day review of the company by former Google senior VP Armstrong, who came on board in March.
Dunne’s role, which includes managing key European partner relationships such as Carphone Warehouse and French telecoms business SFR, will be managed by AOL’s VP of business expansion Ariel Eckstein.
An AOL spokesman said, “I can confirm Dana Dunne has left AOL. As part of the [company-wide review] process the position that Dana had has changed considerably and he is leaving as a result.”
His departure comes a month after it was revealed Joanna Shields, president of AOL’s People Network division, was leaving the company (nma 27 May 2009) and two weeks after Time Warner announced it’s to spin off AOL as a separate company, nine years after merging the two entities (nma 29 May 2009).
The spokesman said Armstrong is halfway through his 100-day review of the company’s operations, but claimed there were no other departures at this time. “AOL remains 100% committed to the European market,” he added.
Time Warner, which owns 95% of AOL, will buy out Google’s 5% stake during the third quarter of the year for an undisclosed sum before demerging the two businesses, with AOL becoming a separately publicly traded company by the end of the year.
This story first appeared on newmediaage.co.uk
