Yahoo CEO goes walkabout
 

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is walking away from the train wreck which is the search engine.

It would appear that the controversy over a fake computer science degree that he had on his bio was used by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point to get him out had a big part to play in his exit.

The company will apparently say he is leaving for "personal reasons" but the week old crisis centred on a botched resume is apparently the reason.

Loeb has got what he wanted which was Yahoo's global media head Ross Levinsohn taking over while another person is appointed.

It is starting to look like the exit is part of a board deal with Loeb.

Yahoo's full board is meeting this morning to officially approve the agreed changes at the troubled company, which has an HQ with bad Feng Shui.

It is a victory for Loeb who is set to get three board seats from a slate proposed by him as part of a proxy fight aimed at Yahoo.

The new Yahoo directors will be media exec Michael Wolf and turnaround specialist Harry Wilson.

He did want a fourth, but it looks like former NBC head Jeff Zucker will pull out of the race as a trade off for other consessions.

Five current Yahoo directors will leave the board effective immediately to make way for the Third Point selections and Yahoo's recently added director Fred Amoroso will be named chairman of the board.

Thompson's attempts to explain himself did not appear to help much. He blamed a headhunting firm for introducing the mistake when he was being hired for a job at eBay in the mid-2000 timeframe.

Unfortunately for him, the headhunters said Thompson's claim was "verifiably not true." Heidrick told Yahoo's board that it was in possession of a resume that Thompson had apparently submitted showing the inaccurate CS degree on it.

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