Jan 14, 2009 : Carol Bartz Named Yahoo CEO

📅 January 14, 2009 - Filling the void left by co-founder Jerry Yang who stepped down in November, Yahoo (yahoo.com) has named experienced technology executive Carol Bartz chief executive officer, taking up the reigns of the search engine-based empire following a tumultuous year-and-a-half period of strategic repositioning and platform transformation, marred by failed mergers and partnerships, and plummeting stock prices.

"I believe Carol is the ideal person to take Yahoo! forward and I will be honored to be a resource to assist her in any way she finds helpful," Yang said in a statement. "I believe Yahoo's best years are still ahead of it. For the past 14 years, I have poured all of my energies into this great company -- and I hope to keep contributing to its success for many years to come."

According to the company's announcement late Tuesday, Bartz will take on the roles of CEO and Board of Directors member immediately. She has been reluctant, however, to provide a definite direction until a conference call for its fourth-quarter financial results, set for January 27.

"More than anything, let's give this company some friggin' breathing room," Bartz said in a conference call. "It's been too crazy, everybody on the outside deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn't do, what's best for them. That's gonna stop."

Bartz was most recently the executive chairman of design software firm Autodesk since 2006 after leading Autodesk for 14 years as CEO, where her major accomplishments included transforming the company into a leader in computer-aided design software, increasing revenues from less than $300 million to more than $1.5 billion.

Prior to her role at Autodesk, Bartz assumed executive positions for leading global operations, engineering, sales and marketing organizations for large technology and engineering companies including Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M.

Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock said Bartz is known throughout both Silicon Valley and Wall Street for her deep management expertise, customer orientation, people skills, and industry knowledge.

"We are very excited to have Carol Bartz leading Yahoo! into its next era of growth," Bostock said in a statement. "She is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the Board was looking for, and we are thrilled to have attracted such a world-class talent to Yahoo."

Without going into specifics, Bartz said she is excited to build Yahoo's global brand. "The Company has accomplished a great deal in its relatively short history and I look forward to working together to take it to the next level. There is no denying that Yahoo! has faced enormous challenges over the last year, but I believe there is now an extraordinary opportunity to create value for our shareholders and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees."

All Things Digital blogger Kara Swisher has called the appointment of the experienced executive "one of the safest Yahoo could have made, which is typical for it," however, she is critical of her apparent lack of familiarity with advertising or the web 2.0 Internet.

While Bartz refuses to be typecast in her first days at Yahoo, her Boards membership in innovators Intel (intel.com), and data center and storage network provider NetApp (netapp.com) may surprise detractors who peg her as the kind of "old-school" manager unable to keep pace with the fast-moving, current web environment.