Yahoo! names ex-PayPal president Scott Thompson as CEO

The Cutline

Yahoo's search for a permanent CEO is over.

The company announced on Wednesday that Scott Thompson, former president of PayPal, will be its next chief executive. Thompson's appointment is effective on Jan. 9.

Thompson's predecessor, Carol Bartz, was fired in September after a 30-month tenure that was tumultuous at times. Tim Morse, the company's chief financial officer, served as CEO in the interim. Morse will return to his CFO role once Thompson is installed at the top of the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company.

"Scott brings to Yahoo! a proven record of building on a solid foundation of existing assets and resources to reignite innovation and drive growth, precisely the formula we need at Yahoo!," board chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement. "His deep understanding of online businesses combined with his team building and operational capabilities will restore the energy, focus, and momentum necessary to grow the core business and deliver increased value for our shareholders. The search committee and the entire board concluded that he is the right leader to return the core business to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation."

Here's Thompson's statement:

Yahoo! is an industry icon and I am very excited about the prospect of working with one of the great teams in the online world to deliver Yahoo!'s next era of success. Yahoo! has a rich history and a solid foundation to build on, and its continued user engagement is one of the many reasons for my enthusiasm. With the ultimate goal of delivering the value our shareholders expect, my immediate focus will be on getting to know the entire team and hearing more from all Yahoos, working closely with the engineers and product teams, and diving deeply into our products and services to learn more about what our more than 700 million users find most engaging and useful. I will also be working directly with our region leaders and sales teams globally to get a clearer understanding of the needs of our advertisers and publishers. Clearly, speed is important but we will attack both the opportunity ahead and the competitive challenges with an appropriate balance of urgency and thoughtfulness. I cannot wait to get started.

You can click here for the full press release.

Other popular Yahoo! News stories:
• Iowa's razor-thin result indicates a fierce battle for conservatives is ahead
• Twitter account for Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng, initially verified, now confirmed to be fake
• A high school focus group: who's 'the hottest' Romney son? Scenes from the Iowa caucuses