Yahoo hires new CEO and tasks him with revamping the user experience

Rich Fiscus
4 Jan 2012 13:08

Yahoo has just appointed former PayPal President Scott Thompson as their new CEO and also appointed him to their board of directors.
Thompson, whose resume includes overseeing product development work at eBay and Visa, takes over the reins from Interim CEO Tim Morse effective today. Morse is returning to his former position as the company's CFO.
The choice of Thompson signals a focus, by Yahoo, on improving their overall platform to attract more users. On a conference call with analysts, Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo's board of directors, explained:

The key to success in advertising is providing a great customer experience. That's where it all starts. Advertisers come to Yahoo because users are there they want to reach, and the users are there because of the great customer experiences that they get. And Scott has proven at PayPal that he knows how to create great customer experiences, and that is key to our advertising success.

Thompson elaborated, saying:

The reason why these Internet businesses, when they work, can be spectacular is if you build great innovative products and put them inside a customer experience that the customer actually enjoys and comes back to - revisits and reuses - that's what you have to do to create big businesses on the Internet.

Yahoo had been looking for a new CEO since firing Carol Bartz by phone in September. Bartz took over from company founder Jerry Yang, who was forced out after rejecting a nearly $45 billion buyout bid from Microsoft.
Microsoft's offer was significantly more than Yahoo's market value at the time. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently called Yahoo's rejection of the deal "lucky."