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Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Chairman Maynard Webb
During a conference call with analysts and investors on Wednesday morning, Yahoo Chairman Maynard Webb said the board has "complete confidence" in the company's leadership team.
In a interview on CNBC later on Wednesday, in which Webb appeared alongside Mayer, Webb re-iterated his faith in the CEO.
"I've had the distinct pleasure of running with her now for three years and I've never met anybody that works harder, that's smarter, and cares more. And so we want to help her return this great company to an iconic place where it belongs," he said.
Yahoo announced that it was abandoning the spinoff of its 15% stake in Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba on Wednesday, marking a major about-face for the company which had planned to complete the transaction by January. The move marked the latest setback to Yahoo's long-running efforts to reverse a years-long decline in its business.
In an interview with Business Insider on Wednesday, Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman said that the company was committed to showing results next year and defended the management team's performance.
"You can look at the glass as half-empty of half-full. I tend to look at it as half-full," he said.
"Prior to several years ago, this company had gone through a number of CEOs, you could argue with results that were challenged as well," he said.
"That's always an easy suggestion for an outsider to make," Goldman told Business Insider, in reference to the criticisms that investors may be losing faith in the current management team. "I think we are on a course to improve the growth drivers. Clearly the legacy business has been challenged. I have yet to see anyone have any better ideas as to what to do with the core business," he said.
"We recognize that people want to see improvement," Goldman said. "We are very focused on our operating plan for 2016 and showing results that we would feel good about."