Yahoo boss Marissa Mayer loses annual bonus over huge security lapses
Yahoo chief executive, Marissa Mayer, has suffered the consequences of several mammoth security breaches, which at one point threatened to scupper Yahoo's takeover by Verizon, after the company’s board voted to scrap her annual bonus this year.
Acknowledging the severity of the incident Mayer went one step further and volunteered to forgo an annual equity grant as well with that money instead being redistributed among Yahoo employees.
Explaining her rationale on Tumblr Mayer said: “I am the chief executive of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant this year and have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company’s hardworking employees, who contributed so much to Yahoo’s success in 2016.”
An investigation in to the twin breaches, which occurred in 2013 and 2014, laid the blame for delayed disclosure at the feet of general counsel Ron Bell who immediately tendered his resignation and will not receive any severance pay-out.
Yahoo’s internal security team uncovered the hack in late 2014 but apparently believed it was limited to just 26 accounts, a fallacy which Mayer insists she believed to be true right through to September 2016 when the full scale of the breach finally became apparent.
In light of this Verizon successfully negotiated a $350m discount on its purchase price for the business.