Yahoo ousts half its board

As part of an ongoing effort to recover from a downward spiral, Yahoo said on Tuesday that four board members, including its chairman, will step down.

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang left the board earlier this month. With the additional departures announced today -- including that of chairman Roy Bostock -- more than half of the board's membership will be fresh blood.

Bostock, Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson will step down at the annual meeting, which Yahoo expects to schedule in early June.

In a letter to shareholders, Yahoo also said that former eBay CEO Maynard Webb Jr. and one-time CEO of META Group, Alfred Amoroso, were elected to join the board.

"We believe that this reconfigured board, with a fresh set of perspectives and diverse set of skills, will enable the Company to move forward even more aggressively," the letter, written by Bostock, said.

The shakeup appears to set the stage for incoming CEO Scott Thompson to steer the company in a new direction, according to Charlene Li, the founder of Altimeter Group. Li called Webb "a very trusted adviser" to Thompson.

In its broad strokes, at least, the shakeup was what investors had been calling for, said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. "Investors have felt for a long time that the board was just rubber stamping what the leadership was doing. They want a reinvigorated board with some independence. People will wait to see what's different but I think this will be seen as a positive."

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