Rambler Media appoints ex-Yahoo guy as chief exec

After board's extraordinary general meeting Rambler Media Limited (LSE: RMG) announced the appointment of two new board members and two new executives. Vladimir Pravdivy and Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentsiper nominated by Rambler's major shareholder PM Invest Company joined the board of directors while Alexander Rappaport and Vitaly Rudenko were resigned. Another resolution passed on the EGM was an appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as auditors of the company for the fiscal year 2006 annual audit.

Later that day the company also announced the appointment of Mark Opzoomer as chief executive officer and Arthur Akopyan as chief financial officer. According to official statement current CEO Irina Gofman will be stepping down from her day-to-day activities during a transitional period and will remain on the board of Rambler Media as director in a non-executive capacity.

Mark Opzoomer was the managing director and regional vice-president of Yahoo! Europe from July 2001 to December 2003 and provided Rambler Media's board with direct experience of Internet, communication and media industries since 2005.

The appointment of Arthur Akopyan, a former Synterra's manager, was rumored before the EGM when several Rambler's top managers went on vacation, as Webplanet reported.