As Yahoo prepares to get its act together after the failure of talks with Microsoft and the consequent search advertising partnership deal with rivals Google, comes another challenge – that of dealing with the departure of some of its top executives.

In the past week alone, Yahoo has lost some of its most valued and respected employees. Senior executives in charge of crucial areas like search, advertising technology, communications, networks and services like photo sharing, have chosen to walk out on Yahoo following the announcement of the collapse of the Microsoft takeover bid last Thursday.

Most notable amongst the biggies who have left the company, are Jeremy Zawodny, a developer who has been instrumental in the growth of the company since 1999 and Brad Garlinghouse, responsible for communications and communities including email and messenger services, Yahoo groups and Flikr.

Other high profile employees to have quit the company include Qi Lu who managed Yahoo’s search marketing and search advertising technology, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the husband-wife duo who sold Flickr to Yahoo, as well as Vish Makhijani of Yahoo’s search group.

As Yahoo’s present top brass including Jerry Yang, founder and CEO and President Susan Decker attempt to re-organize the entire company set up in this period of total confusion and instability, they would also need to figure out a way to appease their increasingly agitated shareholders. Yahoo’s shares have dipped 13% since last Thursday when it was announced that the company was putting an end to negotiations with Microsoft.

It remains to be seen whether Yahoo will emerge from this convoluted state of affairs unscathed and re-establish itself as a top-class internet portal.

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