Image: Magnus Hoij/Flickr (Creative Commons)
In a shock announcement, Google’s Marrissa Mayer is officially Yahoo’s new chief executive officer and president. She will start work tomorrow, leaving her role as Google’s Vice President of Search and User Experience, where she was in charge of services like Google Maps and Google Earth.
Mayer will become Yahoo’s fifth CEO in five years, and Scott Thompson, who left the company in May just four months after his leave from PayPal after being caught out faking credentials on his resume. This left shareholders angry and a board reshuffle. Thompson’s predecessor, Carol Bartz, was fired by the board. She left in unamicable terms with the board.
Mayer was employee number 20, and worked with the company for 13 years; and is credited for being behind some of Google’s most recognisable products and developing the distinctive interface for Google News, Gmail and iGoogle. She has started to expand her corporate role, joining the board for Walmart.
She will have a tough time reforming Yahoo, as the company has been through slashing jobs and services. Each CEO brings their ‘vision’ of what Yahoo should be. However, what Mayer wants Yahoo is unknown. That said, she’ll probably bring some of the lessons learnt from Google to Yahoo.
“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 for our over 700 million unique monthly visitors,” David Filo, Yahoo’s co-founder said in a statement.
In a statement to The Next Web, Google’s CEO Larry Page said that she will be missed at Google.
“Since arriving at Google just over 13 years ago as employee #20, Marissa has been a tireless champion of our users. She contributed to the development of our Search, Geo, and Local products. We will miss her talents at Google,” he said.