An executive who’s been with Yahoo for over five years is leaving the company.  Word leaked this afternoon that Tapan Bhat – whose two titles are "Senior Vice President, Integrated Consumer Experience" and "Senior Vice President, Front Doors, Community and Network Services" – will depart.

As you might gather from the names of those positions, Bhat has been an important figure at Yahoo.  The Yahoo homepage and My Yahoo were actually both under his control, along with other projects like Yahoo’s Buzz, Glue, Toolbar, and some mobile apps.

Kara Swisher, who was the first person to find out that Bhat’s heading for the door, determined that Yahoo doesn’t have a permanent replacement lined up, either.

The situation isn’t all bad for Yahoo, though.  For starters, Bhat isn’t storming out, badmouthing the company and promoting his next employer.  Bhat gave Yahoo more than two weeks’ notice (his last day will be June 15th), and in a statement, labeled the move a "difficult decision."

"I’m looking forward to new challenges that lie ahead and am confident that I’m leaving Yahoo! on the right path, and with the right leadership in place" the exec then wrote, not getting any more specific with regards to those challenges.

Jeff Kinder, Senior Vice President of Media Products at Yahoo, will fill in for Bhat for now, according to Swisher.