Parker Barrile is exiting his role as Groupon’s head of product after less than two months on the job, according to multiple sources. The former LinkedIn product exec was hired late this summer to fill the role vacated earlier this year by his predecessor, Jeff Holden, who left Groupon for Uber.
Groupon’s New Product Boss Leaving After Less Than Two Months
The departure comes at a tough time for the daily deals pioneer.
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Jason Del Rey has been a business journalist for 15 years and has covered Amazon, Walmart, and the e-commerce industry for the last decade. He was a senior correspondent at Vox.
As senior vice president of product, Barrile reported to CEO Eric Lefkofksy and was responsible for “leading Groupon’s global product teams focused on web, mobile and design,” according to his company bio. Barrile, who previously spent five years at LinkedIn, didn’t immediately respond to a LinkedIn message seeking comment. The reason for his departure is not yet known.
We reached out to a Groupon spokesperson and will update if we hear back.
(Update 6:33 pm ET: Groupon spokesman Paul Taaffe said Barrile “is leaving to handle a personal matter.” He declined to comment further.)
The executive shuffle comes at an inopportune time for the daily deals pioneer as it tries to train customers to search its site for deals rather than relying on them to open emails at a time when people’s inboxes are increasingly saturated. It has tried a bunch of tactics to make this happen over the last year, most recently unveiling business listing pages, which it hopes will attract more businesses, and in turn more customers, to its marketplace.
But all these changes haven’t helped Groupon’s financial results; revenue came in a tad under analyst estimates in the second quarter and the company lowered its earnings expectations for 2014 because it is spending more than expected on marketing. Its share price is down 50 percent since the start of the year.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
