AFP - Newly crowned Yahoo! chief executive Carol Bartz on Thursday announced that she is shaking up the floundering Internet pioneer's management structure.

Bartz unveiled changes shortly after Yahoo! sent US securities regulators word that chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen is leaving the company and that the hunt is on for his replacement.

Word of Jorgensen's departure came a day after he fielded questions about Yahoo! at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco.

"I'm rolling out a new management structure that I believe will make Yahoo! a lot faster on its feet," Bartz wrote in a Yahoo! blog post.

"For us working at Yahoo!, it means everything gets simpler. We'll be able to make speedier decisions, the notorious silos are gone, and we have a renewed focus on the customer."

Bartz's online message was long on praise for Yahoo! but short on specifics regarding her overhaul of the company.

Bartz, the former CEO of software firm Autodesk, said she is creating a customer advocacy group to augment the Yahoo! customer care team.

"After getting a lot of angry calls at my office from frustrated customers, I realized we could do a better job of listening to you and supporting you," Bartz wrote.

The group is also expected to learn from Yahoo! users and advertisers what online services or products they desire, according to Bartz.

"I've noticed that a lot of us on the inside don't spend enough time looking to the outside," Bartz wrote. "I'm singularly focused on providing you with awesome products. Period."

Bartz said that she has been on a "whirlwind tour" of Yahoo! during the six weeks since she took over as chief executive and that she is "slowly getting smarter about what makes this place tick."

"People here have impressed the hell out of me ... But there's also plenty that has bogged this company down," Bartz wrote. "For starters, you'd be amazed at how complicated some things are here."

Bartz said Yahoo! has failed to make clear what the company represents.

She did not mention Jorgensen's departure in her online posting. Jorgensen is the second Yahoo! executive this week to head for an exit.

Neeraj Khemlani, vice president and general manager of Yahoo! News and Information division, left Monday for a digital media job with publishing group Hearst Corp.

During his Goldman Sachs talk, Jorgensen said Yahoo! is open to selling its Web search business or entering into a partnership with another company, but doing a deal would be hard.

"We are not opposed to doing a deal that would maximize the value of the business in one way or another, be it a partnership or be it a long term sale," Jorgensen said.

Microsoft has expressed interest in Yahoo!'s search business and made a failed takeover bid for the Sunnyvale, California-based firm last year but Jorgensen did not mention the US software giant as a potential partner.

Chief executive Steve Ballmer has said Microsoft remains interested in a search partnership with Yahoo!

Speculation of such a deal has been revived with the departure of Yahoo! chief executive Jerry Yang, who opposed the Microsoft bid, and his replacement by Bartz.

Google is the overwhelming market leader for Internet search with a market share of more than 63 percent in January according to research firm comScore, followed by Yahoo! with 21 percent and Microsoft with 8.5 percent.