Yahoo CEO Thompson forced out after 4 months
CHRISTINA REXRODE
NEW YORK – Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson left the company four months into the job Sunday after more than a week of scrutiny into inaccuracies on his résumé and in company filings.
The struggling Internet company had hoped that Thompson, who became CEO in January, would turn things around. But he now becomes the fourth CEO to leave Yahoo in five years. He is being replaced by Yahoo’s global media head Ross Levinsohn.
Thompson’s exit was encouraged by Third Point, the activist hedge fund that owns nearly 6 percent of Yahoo shares. Third Point claimed that Thompson had padded his résumé with a degree in computer science from Stonehill College. Thompson did earn an accounting degree from Stonehill, a Catholic school near Boston, in 1979, a fact that Yahoo correctly lists. But he did not earn a computer science degree.
Third Point’s CEO, Dan Loeb, and two of the hedge fund’s other nominees will join the Yahoo board. Five directors who had planned to leave later this year will now leave immediately. Interim CEO Levinsohn is someone that Loeb had suggested for the job.
In a statement issued through Yahoo, Loeb said he was “delighted” to join the Yahoo board and promised to “work collaboratively with our fellow directors.”
