Charles “Lanny” Baker will cease to be Yelp's Chief Financial Officer, effective September 2, 2019. 

Lanny has put in place a strong financial discipline that has helped Yelp grow to nearly $1Bn in annual revenue, while significantly increasing profit, and returning more than $600 Mn to shareholders. 

Now, after working with the company for three and a half years, Lanny has decided to move on, as he accepts an executive position at another company. Where Lanny is moving has not been revealed yet. 

As Yelp and Lanny made the announcement of his resignation, Lanny tweeted a thankful message for his colleagues. He wrote, "I am incredibly thankful to have been part of such an exceptional team over the past three and a half years, a time in which Yelp has executed a number of transformative steps in its growth strategy."

His contribution was also acknowledged and appreciated by Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. 

"His numerous contributions have helped lay the foundation for accelerating revenue growth and continued margin expansion in the years to come," shared Stoppelman. 

He further added that he is confident in the strong finance team that Lanny has helped cultivate.

"We appreciate the role he has played in positioning Yelp for long-term success. We wish him all the best in his next endeavor," exclaimed Stoppelman. 

The focus for Yelp will now be on finding a good replacement of Lanny. To hunt for its next CFO, Yelp is working with recruitment firm Russell Reynolds Associates. The Board and management team have already initiated a search for a new CFO to help the company execute on its long-term plan to accelerate growth, expand profitability, and increase shareholder value. As the role is critical for the firm in its current expansion mode, they have named an interim finance head to take care of some of the key responsibilities. 

Finance Vice President James Miln will become interim Chief Financial Officer as the current CFO moves out.

Miln, who currently leads Financial Planning and Analysis at Yelp, brings to the role more than a decade of leadership experience spanning financial planning, business analysis, and investor relations at large publicly traded companies including eBay, Yahoo!, and Unilever.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Yelp is a business directory service and crowd-sourced review forum. Yelp belongs to an industry which is growing rapidly. As most of the individuals look up to internet for information about anything and everything today, the opportunity for businesses like Yelp are immense. From restaraunt reviews, company reviews to details of doctors and salons, consumers today are dependant on internet for most of these information. While the consumer demand creates an opportunity, companies in this space, they  also have to be mindful of the information they are disseminating. The content should be relevant and authentic, otherwise the trust of consumers can be lost.

Founded in 2004 by former PayPal employees Russel Simmons and Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp  has grown in usage and has raised several rounds of funding in the following years. However, it has also been in news for using unfair practices to raise revenue from the businesses that are reviewed on its site.

Image Credits: siliconvalley.com