Yahoo, the premier digital company is seeing a lot of heat up these days, since the company hired its new former PayPal employee Scott Thompson as its new CEO. Soon after this, the company’s co-founder Jerry Yang has resigned from its board of directors.
According to AllThingsD, Yahoo will soon announce the departure of four of its longtime board members, including Chairman Roy Bostock. The others headed out the door are Hewlett-Packard executive Vyomesh Joshi, Gary Wilson and Arthur Kern.
With this, the company is also making the move with two new hires – Yahoo’s two new directors are former Rovi CEO Fred Amoroso and LiveOps Chairman (and former CEO) Maynard Webb, who was once COO of eBay. Rovi does digital entertainment technology, while LiveOps offers cloud-based enterprise solutions.
Here is an excerpt of Roy Bostock’s letter to its shareholders:
- First, and most importantly, we have appointed Scott Thompson as CEO to lead our company. Scott is a capable and dynamic leader who brings the experience and expertise the Company needs to achieve robust growth and success in the marketplace. Over the coming months and years, Scott will lead an outstanding team of Yahoos to deliver engaging user experiences driven by innovative products.
- Second, we have made significant progress on the comprehensive strategic review which is overseen by the board’s Transactions and Strategic Planning Committee, chaired by director Brad Smith, the CEO of Intuit. The Committee’s guiding principle has been to assess alternatives which would increase value for all Yahoo! shareholders, and the Committee has been open to any transaction or initiative that would serve this objective.
- Finally, the board has concluded that in order to accelerate the Company’s transformation, the combination of a new Chief Executive Officer with an enhanced team of independent directors would provide Yahoo! with the expertise and perspectives necessary to drive innovation and growth going forward. Therefore, Mr. Joshi, Mr. Kern, Mr. Wilson and I have volunteered not to stand for re-election at the next shareholders’ meeting.
