New Prospect for Yahoo CEO: Carol Bartz
How did BoomTown forget former Autodesk exec Carol Bartz for Yahoo CEO?
Yahoo certainly hasn’t. According to several sources familiar with the Yahoo (YHOO) search for a new leader to replace Co-founder Jerry Yang, the company is looking hard at the longtime and high-profile Silicon Valley executive (pictured here).
Many I have spoken to inside and outside of Yahoo with knowledge of situation said the company is winnowing down its list to a few internal and external candidates and Bartz is a favorite.
While some speculate that Yahoo could announce a candidate sooner than later, it’s long past when Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock promised some big investors a new and serious leader would be in place.
Some sources close to the board still think Yahoo could still end up opting for one of its own.
If so, the leading choice is most likely board member John Chapple, former Nextel CEO, although sources say he does not want the post now, preferring an outsider for Yahoo CEO. The other board member mentioned is Maggie Wilderotter, a former Microsoft exec.
Whoever gets the job needs to move quickly on a range of actions needed–from deciding the strategy with regard to a search deal with Microsoft (MSFT) to determining whether a long-running merger deal with Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL should happen.
So far, Yahoo’s board has also gotten a lot more rebuffs from outside execs than expected for the top spot.
This is no surprise, due to the highly difficult task of turning the company around. While rich in assets and online traffic, Yahoo has suffered over the last year from a range of internal and external troubles.
Bartz is certainly an experienced and very well-regarded tech exec, with the talent to turn things around. She served as chairman, president and CEO for 14 years at the San Rafael, Calif.-based company that makes design software.
While there, Bartz presided over huge growth at Autodesk (ADSK), stepping down in April of 2006, and has since served as its executive chairman.
She also put in stints at other big tech companies, including Sun Microsystems (JAVA), Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M (MMM).
More interestingly, Bartz is also on the boards of a blue chip list of companies and organizations, including Intel (INTC), Cisco Systems (CSCO), NetApp (NTAP), and the Foundation for the National Medals of Science and Technology.
Yang is also on the board of Cisco, and Yahoo President Sue Decker is on Intel’s, so Bartz is a well known quantity to Yahoo.
She is also exactly the kind of serious, seasoned public company CEO with tech experience whom Yahoo’s board has told investors and others it is looking for, with skills to pull off mergers and think strategically.
But Bartz also was in charge of a more old-school kind of tech company, and has less experience in the faster-moving Web environment that prevails now.
Although she toughed it out successfully, Bartz underwent difficult times during the Web 1.0 era, in fact, when investors were worried about Autodesk’s prospects in the online era.
Still, Bartz also has less advertising experience, which is Yahoo’s principal business.
Nonetheless, she is well-liked in the tech community and has ties to key companies Yahoo must deal with, including Microsoft.
Whether Bartz herself is interested in taking over a massive overhaul like Yahoo is unclear. I reached out to her for a comment, but have not heard back yet.
According to her resume on Autodesk’s Web site, Bartz holds an honors degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin.
Comments
Hello Kara!
Digital Equipment Corporation had a ticker symbol of DEC. You could have shown that.
,dave
Posted by Dave Barnes at January 7th, 2009 at 7:03 pmD:
We don’t use ticker symbols no longer in use. The tickers are for search engines etc.
Posted by Kara Swisher at January 7th, 2009 at 8:39 pmI think she’d be great. I worked for her at ADSK, and she has a technical background, business acumen, and she can cut through bs like nobody’s business. Isn’t that what Yahoo needs right now?
Posted by nilofer merchant at January 7th, 2009 at 9:23 pmAnybody but Yang will do at this point. I think Mikey Mouse would have lost less shareholder value then Yang so I doubt she can do much worse. The reality is that Yang, Decker, Boystock et. al. all need to go. If Yang is involved in the search you can count on a few things:
1) It will take way too long;
2) It will cost too much;
3) It will turn out incorrectly
To say that indecision runs rampant with Yang, YHOO & Co. would be the understatement of the century. With any luck 2009 will be MUCH better then 2008.
Posted by michael kane at January 7th, 2009 at 9:29 pmI think she is really neat - recently heard her podcast at Stanford and found her values impressive.
Posted by Mrinal Desai at January 8th, 2009 at 11:19 amSeems that Yahoo needs someone with good people and ‘big picture’ skills right now rather than web, advertising stuff.
She has an inherent need to be interested rather than interesting so she should not have any difficulty unlearning and learning quickly.
It was delightful to see Bill and Steve sharing a stage and reminiscing about their stuff, but I was surprised that Bill (gadgets) and Steve (widgets) didn’t settle the debate about the original inventor of the widget.
One can never have too many widgets. Somebody codes something you never even dreamed of wanting - suddenly everybody
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Posted by erdem ela at April 17th, 2009 at 10:38 pmbedava ligtv izle
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şiir türleriçetchatsohbet needs a whole bunch of widgets because they don’t impinge too much on the screen/template real estate.