Armstrong is soon to be the ex-CEO of Verizon’s Oath, the division formed when AOL and Yahoo merged under one banner. Verizon had high hopes for Oath, its digital advertising unit, but has yet to see the progress it wants with the company–and has yet to see it be able to compete with Facebook and Google’s ad empire, which is probably why Armstrong, who has been CEO at Oath since 2017, is being shown the door. Armstrong will be replaced by Oath’s current COO, K. Guru Gowrappan, who will assume CEO duties on October 1, CNBC reports. Announcing Gowrappan’s promotion to Oath’s CEO, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said:
“Guru has proven experience in scaling businesses globally. I’m thrilled he will lead Oath in an exciting new phase of growth, building on the foundation Tim and his team have created by delivering brands our customers love.”
As for Armstrong, he penned a letter to employees calling attention to Oath’s highlights:
Yahoo Finance is one of the largest financial news and data platforms in the world, TechCrunch and Crunchbase are two of the largest providers of tech information in the world, Yahoo Fantasy Sports provides millions of sports fans a deep community for their most passionate interests, Yahoo and AOL Mail & Search products serve our most valuable audiences, and our newly launched and unified Oath Ad Platforms provides the world’s most important brands and publishers a growth engine for their businesses.
While Armstrong is losing his CEO role at Oath, he will be staying on as a “strategic advisor” to Verizon, he said.
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