YELP Yelp Inc

Yelp Inc. said Charles "Lanny" Baker would be its next chief financial officer, as the local-business reviews company works toward being consistently profitable and scales its business.

Mr. Baker is replacing Rob Krolik; Yelp had said in February he would step down once a replacement was found.

Founded in 2004, Yelp went public in 2012. Like Facebook Inc., which was also founded in 2004, Yelp makes the bulk of its money by selling advertisements.

But, it has struggled to remain profitable—since it went public, the company has posted losses in every quarter save a three-period stretch of profitability in 2014.

The San Francisco company, which last year called off plans to sell itself, has amassed millions of consumer reviews from restaurants to dentists, hair salons and federal agencies, but its results have faltered. At the same time, tension with Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which once tried to buy Yelp, has intensified as Google pushes its own listings. Yelp relies on search engines like Google to attract users.

Most recently, Mr. Baker was chief executive of online real-estate brokerage company ZipRealty Inc. During his tenure, ZipRealty was acquired by Realogy Holdings. He had previously been ZipRealty's financial chief.

He is a director of XO Group Inc., a media company that runs a wedding services marketplace. Until December, he was a director at vacation rental company HomeAway Inc.

"His track record of success across the financial, strategic and operational areas of digital businesses will be an important asset to the company as we continue to rapidly scale our advertising and transaction businesses," Chief Executive Jeremy Stoppelman said.

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 20, 2016 09:55 ET (13:55 GMT)

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