Ross Levinsohn has resigned from Yahoo! following the appointment of Marrisa Mayer as CEO.
Levinsohn had served as Yahoo’s interim chief executive officer after the then chief executive Scott Thompson voluntarily left the company two months ago because of his questionable resume.
He has vast amounts of experience in the technology and internet industries as he has worked at MySpace and search engine AltaVista. It was believed he was one of the leading favourites to land Mayer’s new post.
He also had a stint at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp before he left six years ago to invest in small media startups.
The internet company has had a relatively high turnover of chief executives in the past three years, five chief executives in total in the past three years, including Mayer, who it is hoped could change the fortunes of the company with her leadership, knowledge and experience.
According to reports, while Levinsohn was interim CEO, Yahoo worked out the final details of a plan for Chinese e-commerce provider Alibaba Group Holding Ltd to buy back a stake in itself. The deal, long urged by shareholders, would hand Yahoo at least US$6.3 billion in cash and as much as US$800 million in newly issued Alibaba preferred stock.
It is also reported that he will receive more than US$1 million in restricted stocks as compensation.
