Maynard Webb to be Yahoo interim chairman as Fred Amoroso quits

Yahoo! Inc the largest US web portal, said Fred Amoroso has resigned as chairman and would not seek re-election as a director while the company continued to be in the process of a fresh turnaround effort by chief executive officer Marissa Mayer.

According to a statement by Yahoo, Maynard Webb, who joined the board in February 2012, would serve as interim chairman. Yesterday's statement went on to add that Amoroso, who became a director at the same time as Webb, told the board when he became chairman in May that he planned to serve in that role for a year.

Yahoo, which has seen a number of  management and board changes in the past two years, is adding tools and services in a bid to attract users and advertising dollars under Mayer, who joined the Sunnyvale, California-based company in July. According to analysts, with Mayer at the helm, the shift in board leadership would likely not hurt Yahoo.

Amoroso said in the statement that the company had made strides since he became chairman. Amoroso, a former International Business Machines Corp executive had run Rovi Corp until 2011.

''I'm very grateful and proud of the progress Yahoo has made,'' Amoroso said in the statement. ''Yahoo hired a great new CEO, brought on a fantastic management team, revitalised the employee base, and has begun to release top-notch new products.''

Meanwhile Business Insider said, based on what they had understood from three Yahoo sources, that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was not Amoroso's first choice for CEO.

The day after Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson had to quit the company, following allegations that he lied on his resume, Amoroso stood up at an all-employee meeting at Yahoo and said that Ross Levinsohn would be interim CEO, and that he should be the permanent CEO. Yahoo then hired Marissa Mayer to be Yahoo's permanent CEO and from that minute  the clock started ticking for Amoroso.

According to the report it was not that Mayer and Amoroso had a bad relationship or that the split came due to some animus. It was just a matter of trust and credibility Business Insider said.

Amoroso's first appointment to the board was due to Roy Bostock, the former chairman of Yahoo. Bostock has been blamed by many people, including current Yahoo board members, for running a slow-moving board that let Yahoo to get into the mess it was in. Amoroso being a Bostock nominee, had to go with the board in a process of turn over.