Hilary Schneider, a long-time friend and colleague dating back to her days at The (Baltimore) Sun — yes, Baltimore wasn’t even in the name of the newspaper then — is one of three top executives leaving Yahoo.

The departures were announced yesterday (and reported by AllThingsDigital).

Schneider would make a perfect candidate for CEO of a major newspaper group — although it’s hard to imagine she would want to tackle that tough and frustrating challenge. Anyone know of a media company that could use a brilliant digital executive who still knows newspapers? Can you think of a media company that will emerge from a bankruptcy relatively unencumbered by debt, that once was a world leader in interactive media, and has large assets on the West Coast, where Schneider and her family live? (Can you spell T-r-i-b-u-n-e?)

Schneider was president and CEO of Times Mirror Interactive (which became part of Tribune) way back in, say, the early 90s. (I can’t remember the exact dates, but it was just a few years ago in real terms or centuries ago in interactive-media terms.), She spent several years at Knight Ridder, and rose to serve Tony Ridder as one of the two No. 2s in the company. She also served as became president and CEO of Red Herring Communications. Schneider joined Yahoo in 2006 to manage its classified products, and became the overall head of its Americas organization, reporting to CEO Carol Bartz. In March, she took on responsibility for oversight of its sales throughout the Americas.

“After nearly four years with Yahoo, Hilary has decided to move on to the next phase in her career,” Bartz said in an internal memo. “Hilary has played a major role at Yahoo in driving our strategies for content, online advertising and more. I want to thank her for her contributions over the years and wish her the best as she moves on.”

The other two execs leaving Yahoo are David Ko, SVP of audience, mobile and local for North America; and Jimmy Pitaro, VP of media.

The company said it expects to name Schneider’s replacement by year-end, and she will stay on to help with the transition.

UPDATE: In an excellent analysis on his “Newsosaur” blog, San Francisco-based Alan D. Mutter makes a strong case that Schneider’s departure from Yahoo could doom the Newspaper Consortium, a group of hundreds of newspapers that have been working with Yahoo since November 2006. Initially formed to help newspapers participate in Yahoo’s HotJobs — which was recently sold to Monster Worldwide, causing significant integrationand branding issues for some of the participating newspapers — the consortium has since evolved into a relationship where some newspapers are selling behavioral-targeted ads onto Yahoo and other sites. Some members of the consortium have now cut separate relationships with Zillow, the real estate site.