By Jeremy C. Owens, San Jose Mercury News –
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Prominent Google executive Marissa Mayer will be the new CEO of Yahoo Inc., the company announced Monday afternoon, joining Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman as one of the most prominent female business leaders in Silicon Valley.
A Google vice president after joining the Mountain View, Calif., search giant in its infancy, Mayer will become the fifth person to helm Yahoo in the past year, with the most recent being the Sunnyvale, Calif., company’s second interim CEO in that time, Ross Levinsohn. Many outsiders assumed Levinsohn would receive the permanent position after Hulu CEO Jason Kilar bowed out of the running earlier this month.
“I am honored and delighted to lead Yahoo, one of the Internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users. I look forward to working with the company’s dedicated employees to bring innovative products, content, and personalized experiences to users and advertisers all around the world,” Mayer said in Yahoo’s news release announcing the appointment.
Mayer is known for pushing the design aspects that have made Google famous, which Yahoo noted in its news release, saying she “managed some of Google’s most successful innovations … creating much of the ‘look and feel’ of the Google user experience.”
“Marissa is a well-known, visionary leader in user experience and product design and one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting strategists in technology development. I look forward to working with her to enhance Yahoo’s product offerings,” Yahoo co-founder David Filo said in the news release.
Picking a chief executive has proved a major headache for Yahoo’s board.
In September, it fired Carol Bartz, who had been brought into the company less than three years earlier to replace former CEO Jerry Yang. But successor Scott Thompson, former president of eBay subsidiary PayPal, left the company May 13 after it was discovered his official biography included incorrect information about his academic credentials.
Thompson’s ouster had been orchestrated by Daniel Loeb of the hedge fund Third Point, one of several investors troubled by Yahoo’s struggling business, who also engineered the naming of three new directors. Among other things, Loeb has called on Yahoo to grow its media business, produce more original content, and expand its video offerings.
Levinsohn appeared to endorse Loeb’s view, which many thought would help his case to lead the company. He was also cheered for hiring former Google director and media veteran Michael Barrett as chief revenue officer.
But instead of ushering himself into the chair, Levinsohn began a Google era at Yahoo by hiring Barrett, with former Googlers taking top positions in the company’s executive chain. The move reflects the changing of the guard in Silicon Valley, as Google and Facebook have usurped Yahoo’s leadership in several areas — most noticeably advertising.
