EXLCUSIVE: Stuart Sayers is leaving his role as chief executive of Yahoo!7 to take on a position with Amazon Australia.

Sayers confirmed his departure from Yahoo!7 and told B&T he will  be based in Sydney with Amazon but could not yet name his specific role. 

His move to Amazon comes as the ecommerce company launched what has been described as its biggest push yet into the Australian market on Wednesday when it launched its eBooks store locally.

Sayers said the decision to leave Yahoo!7 was a "very tough" one to make.

“Yahoo!7 is really well placed at the intersection between world leading technology and world leading content but  this is just a really exciting opportunity at Amazon that I don’t want to pass up.”

It is likely Sayers will be leading local operations for Amazon as it moves to grow its already large Australian customer-base who shop on the US site. The e-tail giant launched its local eBooks store on November 13, with its new Kindle tablets now on sale at Big W and Dick Smith.

The local e-book store offers more than 2 million e-titles, features more Australian authors and the Kindle Direct Publishing program is now also available locally.

Seven West Media’s head of data and transaction commercialisation will be acting managing director of Yahoo!7 during the search for Sayers’ replacement.

Sayers will remain with Yahoo!7 until the end of January 2014.

Sayers stepped into the CEO role in September last year following the departure of Rohan Lund to chief operating officer of Seven West Media. 

Rose Tsou, senior vice president for Yahoo!Inc and chair of the Yahoo!7 board, said: “I would like to personally thank Stuart for his commitment and efforts over the past year in leading the Yahoo!7 business in the role of CEO.”

“We wish him all the best in his future endeavours. The executive recruitment process is already underway and we hope to announce a new CEO soon.