Connect with execs from The New York Times, TIME, Dotdash Meredith and many more

Kevin Gentzel is out as head of sales at Yahoo, just six months into his tenure there, Digiday has learned. Gentzel was a seasoned print ad sales veteran when Yahoo poached him in October, having had stints as chief revenue officer at The Washington Post and Forbes before that.

Gentzel was at the forefront of the industry’s native advertising trend, having introduced editorial look-alike ad products at Forbes and later at the Post. He had good relationships with ad agencies, and he came to Yahoo at a time when the digital publisher was trying to improve its reputation with the ad community. Still, given Yahoo’s longstanding ad problems under CEO Marissa Mayer and Gentzel’s short time there, he might not have been able to make much of an impact.
As recently as the past few months, ad buyers were still giving Yahoo low marks for its various products. It has rolled out 13 digital “magazines” like Food and Politics since last year to attract premium advertising, but they’ve failed to gather big enough audiences to impress advertisers. Many of the so-called native ads that have run on the verticals are actually direct-response ads.
Agency executives have also complained that Yahoo’s salespeople are slow to respond to RFPs and were heavily focused on selling off-the-shelf deals or pushing them toward Yahoo’s more expensive premium magazine-style native ads — despite the format’s inventory constraints.
Yahoo’s ongoing revenue struggles were manifest in the company’s first-quarter results, when its advertising declined 7 percent.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
More in Media

Three publishers’ workforce diversity reports show DEI efforts remain sluggish
Overall, staff diversity at The New York Times, Hearst and Condé Nast has either marginally improved or stalled in 2024, according to their annual workforce diversity data this year.

Retail media meets publishing: News UK, Future and Ocado tap clean room tech for smarter data targeting
News UK, The Independent, Immediate Media and Future are teaming up with retail media network Ocado to test clean room-powered data matching.

From sidelines to spotlight: Esports events are putting creators center stage
Esports events’ embrace of content creators reflects advertisers’ changing priorities across both gaming and the wider culture. In the past, marketers viewed esports as one of the best ways to reach gamers. In 2025, brands are instead prioritizing creators in their outreach to audiences across demographics and interest areas, including gaming.