User Experience Exec Takes the Helm at Yahoo!

Google's former VP of Products & User Experience Marissa Mayer has been named Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo! - the company's fifth CEO in the last five years.

Yahoo! was founded in 1994 by former Stamford University electrical engineering students Jerry Yang and David Filo. Despite losing ground to competitors in recent years, Yahoo! has 700 million users in 25 countries, and 13,700 employees.

Mayer (pictured), who was the 20th employee at Google, thirteen years ago, was most recently responsible for its geographical products Google Maps, Google Earth, Zagat, Street View, and local search. Prior to this, she spent five years as VP, Search Products & User Experience, and in earlier roles she led consumer web services and product management, where she was involved in the launch of more than 100 features including Google News and Gmail.

After graduating from Stanford University with a BS in Symbolic Systems and MS in Computer Science, she worked at the UBS Research Lab in Zurich, and SRI International (Stanford Research Institute) in California.

Yahoo! said in a statement that Mayer's appointment signals a 'renewed focus' on product innovation to drive user experience and advertising revenue.

Filo comments: '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.'

Web site: www.yahoo.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.