14 January 2009

Carol Bartz named as Yahoo! chief executive

Carol Bartz has been appointed to replace Jerry Yang's as Yahoo!'s chief executive after his announcement, made towards the end of 2008, that he was to step down from the position.

Bartz has spent the last 14 years as chief executive of Autodesk - a company that creates design software for use mainly in architecture and engineering - and is credited with turning the company from a run of the mill software company to the leader in its field; giving her the perfect experience of what is to be expected of her in her new job.

The 60-year-old says she will use her first few days in office to speak to employees and customers but she has, however, refused to create a timeline for when she will be making strategic decisions or for when results would be evident. This is in contrast to her predecessor who set himself a 100 day deadline for coming up with his strategy.

Yang has been criticised by many for his leadership of the company, which saw the share price plummet. One of the major talking points of his time in charge was his rejection of Microsoft's attempt to take over the company and one of Bartz's first tasks will be to look at a new bid from the same party who have renewed their efforts to take control of Yahoo!'s search engine and search ad business.

As Yang moves to his new role as 'Chief Yahoo!', his former deputy - Yahoo!'s president, Susan Decker - has resigned from her role. Decker was also rumoured to be a candidate for the vacancy but in lieu of Bartz's appointment she will be leaving the company after a transitional period.

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