Groupon COO Leaves after Only Five Months; Joins Google (GOOG)

Groupon COO, Margo Georgiadis is leaving the company only five months after joining. Georgiadis is leaving the company to join search engine giant Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG). His departure comes ahead of Groupon’s much awaited initial public offering (IPO).

In a official blog post, Groupon said that Georgiadis was leaving the company to join Google as President of its Americas business. Groupon CEO Andrew Mason wrote in the blog post that the departure of Georgiadis wont have an impact on operations. Mason also wrote that the company would reorganize its management structure in a way that reflects its evolving strategic priorities. Under the new management structure, Sales, Marketing, Channels and International divisions will report directly to Mason.

Meanwhile, Georgiadis will replace Dennis Woodside as the President of Google’s Americas business. The Mountain View, California-base company said that Woodside will now be in charge of integrating Motorola Mobility Holdings, which was acquired by Google last month for $12.5 billion.

With Georgiadis’ departure, the COO slot at Groupon has been left vacant for the second time in less than a year.

The news of Georgiadis’ departure comes ahead of Groupon’s $750 million IPO. It may be recalled that Google last year had made an attempt to acquire Groupon, however, it was rebuffed by Mason. Reuters, citing unnamed sources, said that Groupon had put its IPO on hold for at least a few weeks. The IPO was apparently put on hold to rise out the turmoil in the global financial markets while the company dealt with regulatory issues.

Groupon CEO Mason had recently come under criticism after a memo to employees was leaked to the media. In the memo, Mason had lashed out the company’s critics. He also discussed the company’s revenue growth in the month of August in the memo.

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.