After nearly two years at the helm of Yahoo! Indonesia as its Country Manager, Pontus Sonnerstedt will be leaving the company at the beginning of 2012. He joined Yahoo! as a Senior Director for Emerging Markets from SonyEricsson Asia Pacific in late 2007 before quickly focusing on Indonesia from 2008.
Under his watch, Yahoo! Indonesia acquired location based startup Koprol in May 2010 which was the first time that an Indonesian technology company was purchased outright by a multinational company. Yahoo! Indonesia also launched Yahoo! OMG! (these guys sure like their exclamation marks) locally which quickly rose to the top among Indonesian entertainment news sites. The Indonesian Yahoo! Post, a social search site, was also launched recently
Earlier today, Detik.com posted the word about his leaving, citing a company insider, but had not managed to obtain a confirmation. Sonnerstedt himself was difficult to reach.
The news release, which was sent to DailySocial a short while ago did not contain any statement from Sonnerstedt or anyone at Yahoo! but it did say that he is leaving to take up opportunities outside of the industry. No word yet as to what his next role would be.
Prior to Sonnerstedt’s leaving, Country Editor Budi Putra left in June to become a consultant for startups across the Southeast Asian region as well as to run his own news site, Peneroka. His role was replaced by his deputy, Ibnu Rusydi, better known as Dodi.
Yahoo will also shortly announce the replacement of Brata Rafly as the Sales Director for Yahoo! Indonesia who left to join Intel in May of this year.
Additionally, we have also heard that there will be some regional changes in Yahoo! Southeast Asia but details have yet to surface.
