Microsoft Corp. has announced it is moving Joanne Bradford, the company's head of global ad-sales and marketing, to lead its MSN division, Ad Age reports.

The promotion signifies Microsoft's commitment to its MSN portal as a significant contributor to it's future growth.

"We're open to helping define the intersection in the online space between what is content and what is advertising. There needs to be a clear thought process and understanding about how as marketers you market in the changing environment. How do you deal with user-generated [content] and social networking and the choices people have? We want to continue to do some experimenting," Bradford told Ad Age.

Bradford was hired last January to lead Microsoft's global sales and was responsible for combining ad sales from MSN.com, Xbox Live, Windows Live and Office Live.

The news of Bradford's promotion comes after AOL announced yesterday it had hired Randy Falco as the company's new CEO.

It is also said that Yahoo! Inc. is seeking a new CEO but the company has remained quite reticent about the speculative executive search.