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Yahoo chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt departs for STX Entertainment

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By Tony Connelly, Sports Marketing Reporter

September 13, 2015 | 2 min read

Yahoo chief marketing officer, Kathy Savitt, has left the company to take up a new role at a Hollywood studio marking a difficult week for the company which may has been denied its $23bn stake in Alibaba.

After three years in her current role, Savitt will now serve as chief digital officer at STX Entertainment, a new Hollywood studio backed by TPG’s venture arm.

The Burbank-based film and television company confirmed that Savitt would lead its digital content business with chairman and chief executive of STX, Robert Simonds, praising her "keen insights into storytelling that meet digital and television viewers where they watch".

Yahoo's chief executive, Marissa Mayer, will undoubtedly miss one of her key lieutenants who was responsible for helping to reforming the brand in order to appeal to a younger generation of consumers. Savitt, who worked for Amazon and founded online commerce service Lockerz, is credited with the revival of NBC show and cult series "Community" as well as the launch of sci-fi comedy "Other Space".

In a statement Yahoo said: "We appreciate her contributions to Yahoo over the past three years and wish her well".

Savitt's departure closely follows on from Dawn Airey, Yahoo's top European executive, who left the Silicon Valley company to “pursue external opportunities”.

The departures come in the same week as US tax authorities refused to authorise Yahoo’s proposed spin-off of its Alibaba stake. Yahoo has a 15 per cent stake in the Chinese ecommerce group which it hoped to use to launch the new company, Aabaco Holdings, that would contain about 384m Alibaba shares.

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