Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has looked to a 13-year veteran of the company to replace Carolyn Everson, who left the post of global advertising head after nine months to join Facebook in February. In her place, Frank Holland, a corporate VP for six years, will head up Microsoft’s global advertising sales business, the Advertising & Online organization.
Everson, who is now Facebook’s VP of global sales, arrived at Microsoft last summer with great fanfare after achieving a great deal of notice at MTV Networks (NYSE: VIA). She had replaced former Time Inc. (NYSE: TWX) exec Robin Domeniconi, who had been in the job for a year-and-a-half. Domeniconi departed last summer to return to the magazine world with Hachette Filipacchi’s Elle Group.
Microsoft has had a tough time keeping major ad industry talent. In April 2010, it lost Scott Howe, who oversaw Microsoft’s advertiser and publisher solutions group. Howe had come over in the $6 billion acquisition of interactive agency aQuantive. The departure of Howe came after several other execs associated with aQuantive resigned, including former Atlas president Karl Siebrecht and the company’s former CEO Brian McAndrews.
The purchase of aQuantive represented Microsoft’s big attempt to challenge Google (NSDQ: GOOG) after the search giant bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in April 2007.
Now, in addition to Google, Microsoft has to contend with Facebook as an ad rival, which only made Everson’s exit sting more.
By putting Holland in charge of global advertising, Microsoft is rewarding an executive who has demonstrated loyalty, but as corporate vice president of Microsoft’s worldwide operations, someone who has already forged relationships with the company’s partners and clients. Still, Holland will also have to be able to prove that he’s as adept at dealmaking and creative thinking in order to manage what is appearing to be a more uncertain environment for display advertising due to the weak economy. Release

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