Our new CEO

Posted January 13th, 2009 at 7:08 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor

 36 Comments / Filed in: Trends & News

It’s been a busy day around here, so apologies for the radio silence on today’s big news. As you’ve probably read, Carol Bartz has been named Yahoo!’s new CEO. Carol is the 14-year veteran CEO of Autodesk, becoming the company’s executive chairman in 2006. To quote Jerry Yang’s email to the troops today, she’s known for her “straight talk, decisiveness, operational excellence… leadership skills, hands-on technology management expertise, energy.” In fact, she hit the ground running, with today being her official first day.

Also announced today is that Sue Decker will resign as president after staying on for a transitional period. She will leave Yahoo! after nearly nine years of contributing to Yahoo!’s growth. Jerry, who announced he would step down as CEO in mid-November, will remain at Yahoo!, returning to his role as Chief Yahoo.

Check out Techmeme for the buzz about the news.

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Tagged: news

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36 Comments Add your own

Brinke | January 13th, 2009 at 7:45 pm

Y!’s got a lot left in the tank. Here’s to Carol punching the accelerator.

nobosh | January 13th, 2009 at 9:47 pm

For full coverage try nobosh, its a lot more comprehensive and friendlier than techmeme:

http://nobosh.com/yahoo/news-stories/

Mark | January 14th, 2009 at 6:18 am

Two words of free advice for the new CEO: CONTENT (high-quality, premium content and major local portals from around the world) and MICROPAYMENTS (content monetization through a simple, quick and secure pay-as-you-go microtransaction system of the new generation, such as Znak it!, for example).

John Tune | January 14th, 2009 at 10:24 am

So,Miss NEW CEO.Here’s a job for ya.Go & check this out,PLEASE!!!!Read the feedback hon,it isn’t lookin good,LOL.

http://ycorpblog.com/2008/09/17/testing-testing-a-new-yahoo-com/

RS | January 14th, 2009 at 10:55 am

Looking forward to your ideas, Carol. While I have often criticized the moves Yahoo has made that impact user’s negatively, I hope that your efforts can get a handle on some of the thinking that drives that process, and with your market (aka user) oriented style, I think that will be a positive direction for Yahoo, which has struggled with customer relations, in my experience. I would recommend you read the user comments on some of the blogs to get an idea of user feelings on each product. Best place at present is Yahoo Groups, in my opinion, who seems to understand what other Yahoo teams don’t about customer relations. Worst place right now seems to be the Yahoo Profiles project, which was handled so badly that the crucial onboarding needed was torpedoed. There’s a lot of clean up, but I will gladly give you the friggin’ breathing room to tackle Yahoo’s issues before I offer more feedback. =)

Looking forward to a Yahoo I can come back to. I’ve left a lot of services because of the product developments. They don’t meet my needs and they don’t seem to “get” me as a consumer. I’m always hopeful, because its nice to see a company “get it”, which it seems like you personally do, from what I’ve read of your statements since this was announced. Its nice to hear a CEO talk straight for once. Ignore the people who think that you being an outsider is bad. Yahoo NEEDS an outsider badly right now. The insiders are not “getting it”, and someone who can cut through the crapola that apparently permeates the internal structure is just what it needs to get its collective act together. Good luck, you are gonna need it.

perde | January 14th, 2009 at 11:20 pm

Build a better search engine with a unique difference to yahoo. That must bring the success.

Good Luck.

steve | January 15th, 2009 at 11:12 am

As an enthusiastic shareholder I have a word of advice for your new CEO. I believe the biggest adjustment she will need to make is understanding how she will now be in the spot light on a constant basis.

This is a new experience for her, and the most important thing she needs to do is to chose her words carefully. To that point, there was a better way to start out then stating that her ‘gut’ is telling her not to sell the search business.

Instead, she should be telling the world (because that who is listening now) that given the game changing technology of Yahoo’s new Widgets, a complete reevaluation of ’search’ is warranted. This kind of approach will promote the whole of Yahoo in a much more positive / up-beat light.

RS | January 15th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

Actually, I prefer someone who will talk straight, to mealy-mouthed boardroom speak, Steve. As a user, that’s why I like what I’ve seen of her style. Plus she apparently has the guts to roll heads if needed. Sorry Yahoo Management, but from this users perspective, when you are failing all your company values and doing all the things you claim not to like, its time for whoever is in the way to get a visit from kindly ol’ doctor Foot.

gag | January 17th, 2009 at 3:23 pm

wow interesting

my good wishes Carol

rock on Yahoo! rock on….

Halane Hughes | January 18th, 2009 at 3:16 am

Bravo Yahoo! Your appointment of a talented, brilliant woman has sparked my interest!

Amir Khan | January 18th, 2009 at 3:20 am

I would say that this is one of the wise decision taken by Yahoo management.

Emilio Mrio Carmine | January 18th, 2009 at 7:09 pm

I think it’s high time ‘you guys’ appointed a ‘BOT’ as CEO – no offence

Emilio Mario Carmine

Shareholder & Customer

Is that straight talk or what?

Good Luck!

Anna | January 19th, 2009 at 11:15 am

Great move, Yahoo! Congratulations to Ms. Bartz. Brilliant woman. What a combo!

Daniel Wang | January 19th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

Hope she will be Yahoo!’s Steve Jobs. 祝 Carol Bartz 牛年顺利！

Casey Ann | January 20th, 2009 at 11:30 am

Yahoo! Another crack in the glass ceiling – and a big one.

Scott Partee | January 20th, 2009 at 12:09 pm

I wish the driving had been left to Ms. Bartz earlier, but I applaud the choice. She is a proven executive with the discipline required to re-focus Yahoo on delighting its users and making a tidy profit in the process.

Lisa Jay | January 20th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

Congratulations to Ms Bartz, and thank you Yahoo.

As Casey Ann said, ” another crack in the glass ceiling”.

Dave | January 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm

In my opinion, Carol’s move to halt salary increases to employees violates Yahoo Values. I ask that she should reconsider her decision to do so. Passing the buck, was it really necessary to take a millions for a few years and turn around and freeze salary increases? Arrogance, to take a big salary with a bonus over a few years while the company your going to represent is struggling. I’m just naming a couple of them. Again, this violates Yahoo’s Values in what they don’t value.

Nicki Dugan | January 22nd, 2009 at 12:43 pm

@Dave – Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately it’s a sign of the times and a decision that was made based on the economic environment that is being faced globally. But we should note that this wasn’t Carol’s decision but the entire executive team’s. They felt salary increases wouldn’t be in the best interest of the company (or our shareholders) at this time.

Doug | January 22nd, 2009 at 2:55 pm

Congratulations Ms. Bartz

Here is a suggestion to get me back advertising on Yahoo – allow us to select the websites where our ads are to appear (as Google does). You lost me after Yahoo allowed click farmers to steal thousands of dollars from me.

igantius J Armenia | January 23rd, 2009 at 6:42 am

Dear Ms Bartz

I will not extend my congratulations at this moment. However, I do wish you well in your new endeavor..

We have been on the yahoo site since 1997 when our company first went on line and we were very sucessful. Over the past few years all there have been are e mails on how the yahoo programs have changed and some training information.. and with those changes our busines has declined.
We are considering going elsewhere.
We find that there is never any good direction as to what we should do to improve our clicks that result in productive orders. Yes there are plenty of e mails to explain what we should do but none of them gets down to improving my account.
For us there is such a mixed instruction that no matter what we do we get extremely poor results. Help.Mr Armenia

Mary Beth13 | January 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 pm

I’m not into the corporate world at all, but I am a woman who always love to see another succeed. Another crack in that ceiling..kudos!!

gary shapiro | January 26th, 2009 at 2:07 pm

why do we spend over 1000 a day on ppc with google and
just 100 per day on yahoo? credibility..we are able to opt out of the partner network on google but not on yahoo.
not that we want to opt out on google as their partners are relevant to us)
but yahoo lets every parked domain and link farm resell our ads(we always are in #1 position on search) and usually
#1-2 on organic in over 30 prime keywords. this is amazing to us that this policy continues…anyone can start a search engine and then become a yahoo search partner and then just go and have a bunch of people clicking ads for them..their are even programs you can buy to show you how to do this.” make 100k per month!!!!) …so we cut our bids down and went to standard search to avoid the fraud this brings..when yahoo wakes up and goes for quality and relevancy we will once again be spending 500 per day on their search ads till then its the minimum…hope they adjust their policies from desparate to realistic for the advertisers benefit

Bruiser | January 26th, 2009 at 9:00 pm

Good Luck,

I hope you look closely at the new “Open and Social” changes being made. Your users aren’t happy with the changes. Take a look at the comments the different blogs have been getting.

Personally, I think we’re watching the beginning of the end on the good ship YTanic.

Frank Jonen | February 2nd, 2009 at 11:58 pm

Good luck managing scandals like this one: http://tr.im/eays
This is partly why people are abandoning Yahoo products and analysts will inevitably short Yahoo stock.

seo | July 20th, 2009 at 3:54 am

wow interesting good luck

branda | August 1st, 2009 at 9:03 am

wow interesting good luck

web tasarımı | August 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm

nice ceo :)

kalibrasyon | August 26th, 2009 at 5:20 am

Thanks for article. GOOD LOOK..!!

perde | August 31st, 2009 at 7:05 am

As an enthusiastic shareholder I have a word of advice for your new CEO. I believe the biggest adjustment she will need to make is understanding how she will now be in the spot light on a constant basis.

tül perde | September 23rd, 2009 at 6:57 am

Actually, I prefer someone who will talk straight, to mealy-mouthed boardroom speak, Steve. As a user, that’s why I like what I’ve seen of her style

betsson | October 1st, 2009 at 5:39 pm

yahoo is second services

En İyi Yatırım | November 16th, 2009 at 8:27 am

I hope you look closely at the new “Open and Social” changes being made. Your users aren’t happy with the changes. Take a look at the comments the different blogs have been getting.

Perde Modelleri | December 5th, 2009 at 6:53 am

As an enthusiastic shareholder I have a word of advice for your new CEO. I believe the biggest adjustment she will need to make is understanding how she will now be in the spot light on a constant basis

Akupunktur | December 16th, 2009 at 5:19 am

I’m not into the corporate world at all, but I am a woman who always love to see another succeed.

çay kazanı | January 21st, 2010 at 5:30 pm

a good text. very good.