Marissa Mayer Biography

Marissa Ann Mayer (pronounced ; born May 30, 1975) is President and CEO of Yahoo!. Previously, she was a long-time executive and key spokesperson for Google. Mayer was ranked number 14 on the list of America's most powerful businesswomen of 2012 by Fortune magazine.

Early life and education

Mayer was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, the daughter of Margaret Mayer, an art teacher of Finnish descent, and Michael Mayer, an environmental engineer who worked for water companies. After her 1993 graduation from Wausau West High School, Mayer was selected by Tommy Thompson, then the Governor of Wisconsin, as one of the state's two delegates to attend the National Youth Science Camp in West Virginia.

Mayer graduated with honors from Stanford University with a BS in symbolic systems and an MS in computer science. For both degrees, her specialization was in artificial intelligence. In 2009, the Illinois Institute of Technology granted Mayer an honoris causa doctorate degree in recognition of her work in the field of search.

Career

Mayer joined Google in 1999 as employee number 20 and was the company's first female engineer. During her 13 years with the company, she was an engineer, designer, product manager and executive. Mayer held key roles in Google Search, Google Images, Google News, Google Maps, Google Books, Google Product Search, Google Toolbar, iGoogle and Gmail. She also oversaw the layout of Google's well-known, unadorned search homepage. In her final years with Google, she was Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location Services and, before that, vice president of search products and user experience.

Prior to joining Google, Mayer had completed internships at SRI International in Menlo Park, California and the UBS research lab Ubilab in Zurich, Switzerland.

On July 16, 2012, Mayer was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo!, effective the following day. She is also a member of the company's board of directors.

In 2013, Mayer ranked 32 in the Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. Also in 2013, Mayer became the first woman listed as number one on Fortune magazine's annual list of the top 40 business stars under 40 years old.

In February 2013, Mayer oversaw a major personnel policy change at Yahoo! that required all remote-working employees to convert to in-office roles. Having worked from home toward the end of her pregnancy, Mayer returned to work after giving birth to a boy, and had a nursery built next to her office suite"?Mayer was consequently criticised for the telecommuting ban.

In April 2013, Mayer changed Yahoo's maternity leave policy, lengthening its time allowance and providing a cash bonus to parents. CNN noted this was in line with other Silicon Valley companies, such as Facebook and Google.

On May 20, 2013, Mayer led Yahoo! to acquire Tumblr in a 1.1 billion dollar acquisition. The acquisition was just one in a series of major purchases that occurred since Mayer became the CEO of the company.

In July 2013, Yahoo! reported a fall in revenues, but a rise in profits compared with the same period in the previous year. In an announcement at the time, Mayer chose to ignore the continued revenue slide, and instead hailed the company's relentless release of new mobile offerings. Reaction on Wall Street was muted, with shares falling 1.7%. In September 2013, it was reported that the stock price of Yahoo! had doubled over the 14 months since Mayer's appointment.

Boards and honors

As well as sitting on the boards of directors of Walmart, Jawbone and Yahoo! Mayer also sits on several non-profit boards such as Cooper"Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mayer actively invests in technology companies, including crowd-sourced design retailer Minted, live video platform Airtime, and mobile payments processor Square.

Mayer was named to Fortune magazine's annual list of America's 50 Most Powerful Women in Business in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 with ranks at 50, 44, 42, 38 and 14 respectively. In 2008, at age 33, she was the youngest woman ever listed. Mayer was named one of Glamour Magazines Women of the Year in 2009.

She was named to Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women in 2012 and 2013 with ranks at 20 and 32 respectively.

She was named to Time 100 in 2013. Also in 2013, Mayer became the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to have a spread in the September issue in Vogue Magazine. That same year, Mayer became the first woman listed as number one on Fortune magazine's annual list of the top 40 business stars under 40 years old.

Personal life

Mayer married lawyer and investor Zachary Bogue on December 12, 2009. On the day Yahoo! announced her hiring, Mayer revealed that she was pregnant. Mayer gave birth to a baby boy on September 30, 2012. Although she asked for suggestions via social media, the name Macallister was eventually chosen for her baby's name from an existing list.

Mayer is Lutheran. She has stated her priorities as being, "God, family and Yahoo!; in that order," in reference to the famous "Your God, your family and the Green Bay Packers" quote of Packers head coach Vince Lombardi. Marissa Mayer lives in the Four Seasons, San Francisco.