Yahoo board: Four directors leave in shakeup

Yahoo Inc. is shaking up its board of directors, with the chairman of the board and the three other longest-serving directors heading for the exits and two new independent directors arriving, the Financial Times reported.

Board Chairman Roy Bostock and Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson are leaving, and Alfred Amoroso, the former president and CEO of Rovi Corp., and Maynard Webb Jr., a former eBay and Gateway executive, are joining, CNNMoney reported.

According to the Financial Times:

The moves – which will leave Yahoo with a seven-member board appointed entirely since 2010 – follow intense pressure from Wall Street over a number of recent missteps, including the handling of leadership succession and the failure of negotiations over an acquisition by Microsoft in 2008.

Just last month, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Kang resigned his board seat and his other positions at the company, CNNMoney reported.

More from GlobalPost: Jerry Yang, Yahoo co-founder, resigns

Board discussions about "why Yahoo! was not meeting either our own expectations or those of our shareholders" prompted the departures, Bostock wrote in a letter to shareholders today, CNNMoney reported.

Shuffling the board would provide a “fresh set of perspectives” and allow Yahoo’s newly appointed CEO, Scott Thompson to move the company in new directions, Bostock added, according to the New York Times.

More from GlobalPost: Scott Thompson to head up Yahoo Inc.

New directors Amoroso and Webb may have some expertise that will help Yahoo reinvent itself, according to the New York Times.

Amoroso has experience in online video and video advertising after running Rovi, formerly Macrovision, an online video service provider, the New York Times reported. And Webb is the chairman and former chief executive of LiveOps, an online call center services provider, in addition to having served on the boards of Skype and mobile ad company AdMob.