What can generously be called a controversial tenure as CEO of Washington PostWill Lewis is stepping down this week following mass layoffs. Jeff D’Onofrio, former CEO of Tumblr from 2017 to 2022, will step down as acting CEO and publisher. D’Onofrio has been CFO in the post since June last year, meaning he’s had a front-row seat to Jeff Bezos’ dismantling of the once storied paper for the past nine months.
D’Onofrio’s resume does not include extensive experience in traditional news media nor many notable success stories. Before turning his attention solely to Tumblr, he was briefly general manager of Yahoo News while it was still a Verizon property. Under his leadership, Tumblr tried to clean up its image by banning adult content, but its traffic fell by 30 percent. Yahoo bought Tumblr in 2013 for $1.1 billion. By 2019, it was sold to WordPress owner Automattic for reportedly less than $3 million.
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