MINSON PROMOTED TO NEW COO ROLE OVERSEEING 3 BUSINESS OPERATING UNITS: AOL MEMBERSHIP, CONTENT BRANDS AND ADVERTISING.COM GROUP

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun. 29, 2012-- AOL today announced the promotion of Artie Minson, Jr. from CFO to Chief Operating Officer, overseeing AOL’s plan to form three operating units: AOL Membership Group, Content Brands Group, and the Advertising.com Group. This new role and operating structure will allow the company to go deeper on its focus on profitability, coordinated business execution, and resource allocation across its portfolio of brands and services. He will continue to report to Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO, AOL and the company is actively interviewing replacement candidates for AOL’s CFO position.

“Artie is a world-class leader and proven operator who has played a key partnership role with me over the last three years at AOL,” said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO, AOL. “He has significantly improved our balance sheet, cost structure and tax profile, helped unlock significant value for shareholders via asset sales at great prices and led a number of acquisitions which have been and will continue to be drivers of future growth.”

Armstrong added, “He has played and will continue to play a critical role in our capital allocation process as we continue to ensure that our resources are being allocated to the areas where we see the greatest opportunities for returns for our shareholders. Artie has taken on a number of operating roles over his tenure at AOL in addition to his role as CFO including the oversight of subscriptions, search, mail, mobile, and most recently, the AOL content operations. Under Artie’s leadership, the trends in these businesses have significantly improved during this time period. We are thrilled to have an operator of Artie’s caliber taking on this important new leadership role to drive our profitability and future growth.”

As COO, Minson will oversee AOL’s plan to form three operating units and execute a cohesive operating model that will allow AOL to focus on driving growth and improved profitability across its businesses. The three operating units that Minson will oversee are as follows.

• The AOL Membership Group will include the teams that serve AOL account holders, both free and paid members. From AOL.com to AOL Mail to consumer products, the AOL Membership group will be focused on delivering world-class experiences to our loyal users who rely on these AOL products and properties every day.
• The Content Brands Group will include AOL’s portfolio of distinct and unique content and service brands. We have valuable brand portfolio of world-class content brands and each of these brands will have distinct plans for innovation and growth.
• The Advertising.com Group will continue to include AOL’s B2B services and network businesses such as ADTECH, Pictela, GoViral, 5Min and The AOL On Network, and will continue to focus on product innovation and scale to grow and accelerate our clients’ and advertisers’ businesses.

The corporate areas of the business including sales, technology, corporate communications, brand marketing, finance, legal, and human resources will continue to report to AOL’s CEO and Chairman and will be focused on supporting AOL’s operating units. The company has initiated the process to prepare detailed profitability information for each of these operating groups, and expects to complete that process by the end of the year.

AOL has engaged Peter Crist to help fill the CFO role, and Minson will continue to serve as CFO until new leadership is in place.

About AOL:
AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is a brand company, committed to continuously innovating, growing, and investing in brands and experiences that inform, entertain, and connect the world. The home of a world-class collection of premium brands, AOL creates original content that engages audiences on a local and global scale. We help marketers connect with these audiences through effective and engaging digital advertising solutions.

Source: AOL Inc.

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