Yahoo appoints Bartz as new chief executive

by Maisie McCabe, mediaweek.co.uk 14-Jan-09, 10:25

LONDON - Yahoo has hired Carol Bartz, the executive chairman of Autodesk, as its new chief executive officer, replacing Jerry Yang who stepped down to his former role of chief Yahoo in November last year.

Bartz has been appointed to the board of directors and will be in charge of leading Yahoo in its "next era of growth".

Yahoo also announced that president Sue Decker is to resign her role to move on to "other challenges" after working with Bartz to ensure a smooth transition.

Bartz has been executive chairman at software company Autodesk since 2006 and was chief executive for 14 years before that.

Roy Bostock, chairman of the Yahoo board, said Bartz was chosen for her "deep management expertise", strong "customer orientation", excellent "people skills", and "firm understanding" of the challenges facing the online media industry.

Bostock said Bartz's proven track record of "driving growth, operational excellence and shareholder value" would allow Yahoo to achieve its full potential.

Yang said he was pleased with the board's choice and will be "honoured" to assist Bartz in any way she finds helpful. Yang said he hopes to keep contributing to Yahoo's success for many years to come.

His departure from the chief executive role in November reopened the door to a possible Microsoft takeover, which had previously been strongly opposed by the Yahoo founder.

Though Microsoft had stated a takeover of Yahoo was not on the table after the breakdown of talks last year, speculation has continued that certain parts of the Yahoo business could still be bought by the software giant as it looks to increase its presence in the search sector.