Yahoo! board completes restructure

Stephen Withers
Monday, 18 August 2008 05:25

Business IT - Networking

Changes to Yahoo!'s board of directors have been completed with the appointment of Frank Biondi and John Chapple.

The boardroom shuffle resulted from the settlement deal reached between the previous board and Carl Icahn. Icahn threatened to nominate a full slate of potential directors after Yahoo!'s board failed to back a takeover bid by Microsoft.

The settlement saw Robert Kotick's retirement from the board, with Icahn taking his place, plus the expansion of the board from nine to 11 seats.

The two new directors were picked from Icahn's slate, plus former chairman and CEO of AOL, Jonathan Miller.

Biondi is perhaps best known for his tenure as president and CEO of Viacom from 1987 to 1996. He is senior managing director of private equity firm WaterView Advisors, and a director of Amgen, Cablevision, Hasbro, The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation and Seagate Technology.

John Chapple is president of private equity firm Hawkeye Investments, is a director of Cbeyond, Seamobile Enterprises and Telesphere Networks, and is the chairman of Syracuse University's board of trustees. He was previously president, chief executive officer and chairman of Nextel, president and chief operating officer for Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment, executive vice president of operations for McCaw Cellular Communications and subsequently AT&T Wireless Services following the merger of those companies.

What did Yahoo!'s Bostock and Yang have to say about the appointments? See page two.