Groupon's COO has quit after just five months and decided to return to her former employer, Google, Groupon said on Friday.
Margo Georgiadis will become Google's president for the Americas, according to Groupon. She was previously vice-president of Google's global sales operations for two years before leaving for Groupon.
Groupon's founder, Andrew Mason, wrote that the company has undergone a reorganization with Georgiadis' departure, and now sales, channels, international and marketing will report directly to him. Mason wrote that Groupon has expanded its senior executive team by eight employees this year.
Groupon offers online coupons that can be used with businesses, with offers tied in to how many people decide to take up a particular deal. The company makes money by taking a slice of the sales from deals it advertises.
On Friday, the company revealed in a filing on Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it committed an error in how it presented its revenue. The company said it was reporting revenue before it paid fees to merchants using Groupon.
"The effect of the correction resulted in a reduction of previously reported revenues and corresponding reductions in cost of revenue in those periods," according to the filing.
The change brought Groupon's revenue for 2010 from US$713.4 million down to $312.9 million. The change also affected calendar years 2008 and 2009. For the first half of this year, Groupon restated its revenue as $688 million, down from $1.5 billion.
Google reportedly made a $6 billion bid for Google last December, but it was not taken up by Groupon's board. In June, Groupon filed papers with the SEC for an initial public offering, but it was delayed.
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