NOT THE MOST ideal way to lose your job. Yahoo’s chief executive, or should we say former chief executive, has revealed how she was fired over the phone yesterday.

Carol Bartz sent an email to colleagues in which she informed them she had just been told by the chairman that a change was being made and her services were no longer needed.

The email, revealed on All Things D, reads:

To all,

I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.

Carol

Sent from my iPad

Bartz, 63, was replaced by chief financial officer Tim Morse, named as interim CEO, after a rocky 32 months at the helm. The company described the change as a “leadership reorganisation,” in a statement released late yesterday.

She led an austerity campaign which helped boost Yahoo’s earnings, but the company didn’t increase its revenue even as the internet ad market grew at a rapid pace.

The financial funk, along with recent setbacks in Yahoo’s line search partnership with Microsoft and the Alibaba investment, proved to be Bartz’s downfall. Her ousting comes with 16 months left on a four-year contract that she signed in January 2009.

Yahoo has now replaced three CEOs in a little over four years. During that time, it has lost ground in the internet ad race to online search leader Google and Facebook even though its website remains among the world’s most popular.

BBC News reports on the jump in Yahoo shares in after-hours trading by more than 6 per cent after the news of Bartz’s sacking emerged. Yahoo’s stock price was up at $13.72, an increase of 81 cents.

- additional reporting from AP