Marissa Mayer will step down from the company that’s left over after Verizon Communications acquires Yahoo's core internet assets
Yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer will step down from the company that’s left over after Verizon Communications acquires its core internet assets.
The 41-year-old will receive a $30 million golden parachute and gain control of stock options valued at $75 million ($US56.8 million), according to a regulatory filing.
Yahoo’s email and other digital services will become part of Verizon, under a $6.38 billion ($US4.83 billion) deal struck last July.
Yahoo board member Thomas McInerney will run the new company called Altaba, including Yahoo’s most valuable parts including investments in China’s e-commerce leader, Alibaba Group, and in Yahoo Japan.
McInerney, 52, is a former executive with Ticketmaster and internet firm InterActiveCorp. He is set to receive $US2 million in annual base salary - double Mayer's current base pay.
Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Ken Goldman will also be stepping down and is set to get $9.5 million in severance.
Since becoming CEO in July 2012, Mayer’s time at Yahoo has had some controversial moments.
Her reign involved acquiring multiple businesses as she attempted to turn the company into a media powerhouse.
Earlier in the month it was revealed that Mayer would lose her cash bonus (worth about $2m a year) over the mishandling of a 2014 data breach.
An internal review found Mayer’s management team reacted too slowly to the breach which involved 500 million accounts that had been potentially compromised.
Moreover, a lawsuit was filed late last year in the US alleging that Mayer actively “purged the company of male employees”.
Scott Ard, a former media executive at Yahoo, alleged that Mayer “encouraged and fostered the use of [an employee performance-rating system] to accommodate management's subjective biases and personal opinions, to the detriment of Yahoo's male employees”.
