He rejoined the firm in his current role in 2013 following a period serving as Chief Development and Chief Operating Officer of Skype Global S.à.r.l, a former portfolio company, and as a Corporate Vice President of Microsoft. He originally joined Silver Lake in 2009 to lead the value creation efforts of Silver Lake in Europe. Mark Gillett is a Managing Director and Head of Value Creation. Prior to joining Skype, Gurle had founded Microsoft's Real Time Communications business group, according to a Skype bio.Managing Director and Head of Value Creation One of the terminated Skype execs was David Gurle, who formerly served as vice president of the company.

The investment company may hold about 70 percent of Skype, which is what it purchased from eBay in 2009. Silver Lake floated a list of executives to cut, according to the Bloomberg article. The reasons for the job cuts aren't clear, but the Journal speculated that Tony Bates wants to handpick the team or that Microsoft has its own team in place.Ī Bloomberg article posits another possibility for the executive dismissals, with a source speculating that the cuts will lower Skype's stock option price should someone want to buy it. Skype's management terminated the employment of about eight executives before the merger, as noted by the independent Skype Journal blog here. and Skype's founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Andreessen Horowitz, according to Skype's description. Other owners include eBay Inc., Joltid Ltd.

Skype's ownership is led by Menlo Park, Calif.-based Silver Lake investment partners. Skype has claimed it had 'an average of 145 million connected users per month' in the fourth quarter of last year.

Skype's technologies may be rolled into certain Microsoft products, such as Outlook, Xbox, Kinect, Messenger, Hotmail and Lync, according to comments made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Current skype ceo