Yahoo has hired Blake Irving as the portal’s chief product officer. He will join the company May 17.
Irving will lead Yahoo’s products organization in the newly created role and will be responsible for the vision, strategy, design and development of its global consumer and advertiser product portfolio.
Irving was most recently a professor at Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business and Management in Malibu, CA. Prior to that, he was corporate vice president of the Windows Live Platform Group at Microsoft.
Prabhakar Raghavan will continue in his role leading innovation efforts at Yahoo Labs as chief scientist. Like Irving, Raghavan will report directly to CEO Carol Bartz to streamline product strategy decision making, according to a company statement.
Ari Balogh, head of products and technology, will leave the company on June 3 for personal reasons. He will work closely with Irving to ensure a smooth transition.
