Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s take-home pay will be less than usual this year.
Mayer will not receive her bonus, nor will she get a stock award this year, NPR reports. The decision comes after an internal investigation found that senior executives at Yahoo “mishandled” the company’s security breaches in 2013 and 2014. An independent board that investigated the matter also determined that Yahoo senior executives failed to “properly comprehend or investigate” the 2014 security breach, NPR reports.
In September of last year, Yahoo disclosed that a massive security breach occurred in 2014. About 500 million Yahoo accounts were compromised. Hackers obtained personal information, but not credit card details. Then in December of last year, Yahoo disclosed that another breach occurred in 2013, but this one was even bigger: Nearly one billion user accounts were hacked, making it the biggest breach in history.
In a blog post Wednesday, Mayer explained why she agreed to forgo her bonus and annual equity grant:
“When I learned in September 2016 that a large number of our user database files had been stolen, I worked with the team to disclose the incident to users, regulators, and government agencies,” she wrote. “However, I am the CEO 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.”
In addition to the actions against Mayer, NPR reports, the company’s general counsel also resigned. He left without severance pay because of his department’s response to the security breaches.
