YouTube’s Content Head Leaves to Join Ben Silverman’s Co.

Jordan Hoffner will leave his position as head of content partnerships at YouTube to join Ben Silverman’s new content endeavor at IAC. The announcement was made yesterday at YouTube, and paidContent was the first to report it.

Coming from NBC, Hoffner was an injection of big media know-how when he joined YouTube after it was acquired by Google in 2006. The video-sharing behemoth has certainly made a push under Hoffner’s watch to bring on more premium content partnerships, but success has been spotty, at best.

The loss of Hoffner also creates a bit of a public face vacuum for YouTube. Hoffner was often found making the conference circuit rounds on behalf of the company. With him gone, co-founder Chad Hurley seldom appearing publicly, and Steve Chen out of the picture, YouTube will need a new public figurehead. One upwardly mobile exec is Chris Maxcy, YouTube’s head of music partnerships, who will be taking over for Hoffner.

Hoffner’s new role at Silverman’s company is unknown, but presumably includes creating media partnerships. Silverman has described his new venture as “Warner Bros. meets BBDO,” and said he plans to specialize in cross-platform storytelling with active involvement from advertisers from the get-go.