Yahoo’s Chief Executive resigns

Chief Executive Scott Thompson steps down after a dissident shareholder calls attention to an apparent misrepresentation of his college credentials.

Yahoo Inc.Chief Executive Scott Thompson resigned from the digital media company Sunday after a dissident shareholder called attention to his apparent misrepresentation of his college credentials.

Ross Levinsohn, formerly Yahoo's executive vice president of the Americas region, was named interim chief executive, the company said in a statement.

Thompson left after Loeb's hedge fund, Third Point, discovered that Thompson's resume falsely claimed he had a computer science degree. Third Point, which owns 5.8 percent of the company's stock, had launched a proxy battle to seat its dissident-director slate on Yahoo's board, the asia.cnet.com reports.

Third Point is an investment firm headquartered in New York that manages $9 billion in assets.

The management reshuffling is just the latest challenge for Yahoo, which has struggled for years to turn itself around. A month ago, Yahoo announced that it would lay off 2,000 employees, or 14% of its workforce, the Los Angeles Times reports.