Yahoo India’s Neville Taraporewalla quits

MUMBAI: As per an internal communiqué given to employees at Yahoo India, Neville Taraporewalla, its director & country general manager, has decided to call it quits.

When contacted, Taraporewalla declined to comment. His tenure at Yahoo marked localised content in online entertainment and other communication properties.

Taraporewalla’s entry into Yahoo came at a time when portals were grappling for online advertising, and sceptics tagged Yahoo USA as Yahoo India’s biggest competitor.
In addition, there was MSN making steady inroads into the web space via hotmail and improved MSN search.

Taraporewalla, who joined Yahoo as head of sales, was re-designated as director (sales and business development.). Under him, Yahoo India is said to have developed a personality and voice of its own, starting from local news bytes and Indi-audibles on messenger. He is credited with forging long-lasting relationships with leading brands like Pepsi Foods India, Motorola India, British Council, the Department of Tourism, UDV, Thomas Cook and Hutch.  A much-talked-about move in Taraporewalla’s career was an alliance with rival Rediff.com, to jointly promote online shopping and mobile content across both the portals. He helped usher in the 1 Gigabyte mailbox for Yahoo, and initiated power-tie ups with shaadi.com and naukri.com.

Taraporewalla is credited with reversing Yahoo India’s fortunes. He is also known to have helped convert India into a profit centre. He restructured management and improved service delivery within the system.