Starting in effect October 22, Goldman will take over the responsibility for global finance functions including financial planning and analysis, controllership, tax, treasury, and investor relations. His appointment with Yahoo! marks the first time he has joined a publicly traded company since the 1990s. According to a statement by Goldman, he said, “Yahoo is an iconic brand with an incredibly strong business model and balance sheet.” Earlier, Goldman held the post of chief financial officer at Fortinet Inc, which deals in offering computer-network security. Before that, he was the senior vice president of finance and administration and CFO of Siebel Systems, which Oracle acquired in 2006. Goldman has also been an investor in a number of venture funds. In a statement, Mayer welcomed Ken to the Sunnyvale, California-based firm and talked of him as being one of the most accomplished and respected financial executives in the technology industry having served as a CFO for more than 25 years. As Yahoo! works on to enter the next phase of growth, Mayer said Goldman makes an ideal choice for the firm. Hiring Goldman is the second major hire by Mayer, following the appointment of Kathy Savitt as the firm’s CMO. Speculations that Mayer plans to cut around 2000 jobs to reorganize the company had hit the headlines in April this year. The shares of the struggling Internet giant Yahoo! fell 2 percent to $15.68 at a close in New York on Tuesday. Yahoo!’s shares plunged 2.8 percent this year, compared with the Nasdaq Composite Index’s 20 percent gain.
