17 Jul 2012

Google exec Marissa Mayer becomes new Yahoo! CEO

Yahoo! poaches one of Google’s most prominent executives as its new CEO – and she announces her pregnancy on Twitter hours later.

Google exec becomes new Yahoo CEO (G)

Ms Mayer will be the technology company’s third CEO in a year, and will become the most high profile woman in the influential Silicon Valley.

She was Google’s first female engineer, its 20th employee, and had been with the company for 13 years, acting in a high profile executive role. Her move to Yahoo! will be seen as a triumph for the company, which has had been struggling with management problems and tough competition from Google, Facebook and Twitter, despite its huge audience of more than 600-700 million visitors per month.

In a Yahoo! statement released on Monday night, Ms Mayer said: “I am honoured and delighted to lead Yahoo!, one of the internet’s premier destinations for more than 700 million users.”

Then in a further surprise move, Ms Mayer announced in the early hours of Tuesday morning (GMT) that she was six months pregnant.

Ms Mayer said the board didn’t show any reservations about hiring a pregnant CEO, adding: “They showed their evolved thinking.” However that could be because she plans to take only a few weeks maternity leave “and I’ll work throughout it”, she told CNN’s Fortune. She received her first call from a Yahoo! recruiter on June 18, and disclosed to the board that she was pregnant later in the month at a meeting with the CEO’s search committee.

Most recently, Ms Mayer, 37, was responsible for Google’s map and location services and was previously involved in the development of the company’s flagship search engine and iconic homepage.

Yahoo! said the appointment signalled “a renewed focus on product innovation”, revealing a move away from the consumer/content led market, and more towards technological advances.The company is now worth over £19bn – less than half of its peak value.

Its last chief executive, Scott Thompson, left the company in May after only four months in the job, when it emerged that he had lied on his CV, embellishing his achievements.

Yahoo! co-founder David Filo said: “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.”