Still in crisis mode over an embarrassing dispute surrounding his credentials, Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson reportedly told top executives Thursday that he never submitted a résumé or incorrect information to the company.
The controversy began last week when Daniel S. Loeb of Third Point, a hedge fund owning a 5.81 percent of Yahoo shares, sent a letter to the board advising that Thompson’s public company biography falsely credited the CEO with a degree in computer science (in addition to an accounting degree) from Stonehill College. The company later chalked up the inclusion of the computer science degree to an “inadvertent error.”
Already one director, Patti Hart, has stepped down amid the firestorm. Hart headed the board’s search committee last year and announced that she will not stand for reelection. Yahoo is currently investigating how the committee failed to discover the error on Thompson’s biography, which contained the same apparent misinformation that had been listed on his longtime bio at eBay.
