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Yahoo's executive shake-up

May 14, 2012

Yahoo Chief Executive Scott Thompson stepped down as head of the company on Sunday in the face of mounting allegations that he did not earn the science degree appearing on his official resume.

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Former Yahoo chief Scott Thompson
Image: AP

US Internet company Yahoo parted ways with its chief executive, who had only recently been installed at the helm of the web giant. The move came amid a probe into a computer science degree that appeared on Thompson's resume, but which he allegedly never earned.

Yahoo said Thompson would be replaced as chairman of the board and interim CEO by the company's Global Media Chief, Ross Levinsohn.

The executive reshuffle marks yet another debacle for the struggling Internet pioneer. Yahoo has been aspiring for years to find a way of regaining the position of web supremacy it has long lost to younger rivals such as Google and Facebook.

Adorned with unearned plumes

Thompson's resignation followed several days of turmoil after an important investor, Third Point LLC, which owns some 6.0 percent of Yahoo, discovered that the former CEO had not been granted a Bachelor of Science degree in computing that was listed in his resume.

Yahoo's board is meanwhile continuing its probe into the case in a bid to determine whether Scott Thompson may actually forfeit millions in severance pay, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Yahoo was founded in 1994 as a guide to the Internet and within years became one of the most popular sites, reaching a valuation of $100 billion (77.57 billion euros). But the company took a dive during the dot-com crash, conceding supremacy in the field later to new arrival Google in the early 2000s.

hg/gb  (AFP, dpa)