Yahoo has been replacing one CEO after another. Now, after the departure of its last CEO over objections from major shareholders, Yahoo has announced Marissa Mayer as the next CEO of the company. Mayer has a long experience of working with Google on some of its most popular and successful products. The question is, will she be able to turn out Yahoo’s fortunes?
The problem with Yahoo is that although a few years ago, it was one of the most important tech giants on the web, it has gradually grown irrelevant. In the face of innovation and the rapid expansion of the social media, Yahoo not only struggled to keep itself in a top position but has rather failed.
With this appointment as CEO, Ms. Mayer has become one of the most important women in the Silicon Valley at an age of 37. She will be joining the Yahoo team today. The big question is, will she be able to face up to the huge challenges that Yahoo is facing and somehow restore the company’s profitability.
According to the CEO of WPP, a major advertising agency, “It’s a very interesting departure and a very interesting choice. She comes with a formidable reputation, but we’ll see how she analyzes it all.”
Without a doubt, Ms. Mayer is among those very few women who enjoy some very important positions in Silicon Valley. She has been with Google for a long time and has been on the teams which rolled out some of its core products. Leaving Google and joining Yahoo as its CEO is definitely a huge move for Ms. Mayer.
According to her, she had an amazing time at Google. However, to make the decision of joining Yahoo was a fairly easy and reasonable decision, she says. This can be understood better in the light of the fact that although she was made the vice president of the company’s location and local services in 2010, Google put another executive above her the following year.
A venture capitalist who has worked with Ms. Mayer at Google says, “Yahoo finally has someone who has both business acumen and geek cred at the helm. She stands for a work hard/play hard, product- and engineering-driven culture, and Yahoo has been missing that for years.
Let’s hope that with the vision and experience that Ms. Mayer possesses, she will be able to turn around the rather troubled ship of Yahoo in the coming days.
Source: The New York Times
