Monster Worldwide chairman and chief executive Andrew J McKelvey is quitting the company blaming the long hours required by a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into alleged backdating of share options. He will be replaced by William M Pastore as CEO.

McKelvey, 71, will stay on the board of the company, which is the parent of Monster.com, and take the post of chairman Emeritus. He said while it will be difficult to leave day-to-day work at the firm he's been at since 1967, he is looking forward to his new role.

McKelvey said: "I simply can no longer dedicate the number of hours required by Monster's rapid global growth and the additional demands of time associated with the ongoing historical stock option grant review."

McKelvey is Monster.com's largest individual shareholder.

The board has set up a three man committee to oversee corporate governance, which will be headed up by Sal Iannuzzi, president and chief executive of scanner company Symbol Technologies. Symbol, recently bought by Motorola, is facing class action lawsuits from shareholders unhappy with the deal. Iannuzzi is staying on at Symbol.

Read the press release here. ®