Yahoo Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Scott Thompson has resigned and the company has named
Ross Levinsohn as its interim CEO. The company said its board of directors also appointed Fred Amoroso as chairman.
Both appointments were effective immediately.
Thompson was under fire after Yahoo shareholder Dan Loeb alleged that the
CEO does not have a computer science degree from Stonehill College as claimed for the CEO position, as well as in regulatory filings to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Thompson, former president of eBay's subsidiary PayPal, was appointed as CEO in January 2012.
However, this is
not the end of troubles for the internet giant. Yahoo still has credibility issues, even after casting aside Thompson.
It's next challenge will be convincing its restless shareholders and demoralised employees that the turnaround work started during Thompson's tumultuous four-month stint as CEO won't be wasted.
It won't be an easy task, given that Yahoo Inc has now gone through four full-time CEOs in a five-year stretch marked by broken promises of better times ahead.
Instead, Yahoo's revenue and stock price have sagged during a time when rivals such as Google Inc and Facebook Inc as advertisers spend more money online.
Yahoo's hopes are now resting on Ross Levinsohn as its interim CEO.
Levinsohn had a successful stint running Internet services within Rupert Murdoch's media empire at News Corp before one of Yahoo's former CEOs, Carol Bartz, hired him in November 2010 to help her in her mostly fruitless attempt to fix the company.
Thompson, who was hired as Yahoo's CEO in January to fill a void created by Bartz's firing, had promoted Levinsohn last month to oversee the company's media and advertising services throughout the world.
Levinsohn, 48, plans to address workers at a companywide meeting on Monday afternoon.
Former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson 
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