MARISSA MAYER AND HER NEW ASSIGNMENT

 Yahoo plans to set its house in order and thinking young female hands are better to do the job, chose Marissa Mayer as its C E O. Melissa is just 37 and if the name is not as familiar as Irene Rosen field or  Indra  Nooyi  it is because she has been working in Google within a team  and is familiar only among her peers.  However, with Yahoo choosing her as its Head she has become known all over the world beyond the Corporate America.

As yahoo uplifts her to a world stage, it also demands a huge price. Merissa is to work out ways to turn round the ailing giant and bring it back to health.

The irony of it all is that when Mayer joined Google it was struggling to establish itself in the Internet world and was competing with Yahoo and Yahoo was then the unquestioned leader in the field .  Now when the Yahoo is down, destiny demands her to stand with Yahoo up against competing Google.

 Merissa Meyer initially wanted to be a Doctor as she had good marks in Chemistry and Biology and she was also proficient in Maths to take up computer science. Weighing the pros and cons she decided to join for computer science as it offered more challenges in its day-to-day work than in the Medical field.( To quote her ‘ I did not feel challenged by it’ ) When she got the offer from Yahoo she must have found it more challenging than remaining in Google tilting her decision in favor of Yahoo. Besides, she is in the habit of doing just the work that she thinks she is  not ready to do in order to get an advanced learning experience out of it.
And of course the pay package accompanied with the post must also have weighed in favor of Yahoo by her.


Marissa joined Google in 1999 as its 20th employee. She was its first female Engineer and Products Manager. Since then she  has been working in various departments of Google like G Mail, Google tool bar, News , in addition to Google’s pet project of  Driver less car which is still in its testing stage. In fact  all new products received her scrutiny before they rolled out from Google.

 A CNN article by John D Sutter says that she was instrumental to the classic design of Google home page. It must be true because she has an abiding interest and natural feel for designing. She also loves to design clothes Just as she likes to design an home page of a site.  Marissa is a great admirer of legendary designer Oscar de la lenta and if the L.A.Times report is to be believed she spent $60000 in a charity auction to dine with him and Fashion conscious to the hilt, Marissa takes particular attention in the choice of her clothes, shoes and in other Fashion paraphernalia irrespective of their cost.

Marissa Ann Meyer, born in Wausau, Wisconsin, with Finnish ancestry took Bachelors and Masters degree from Stanford  in computer science and also  in artificial intelligence as she found a special interest in it.

It was not her Management skill that made her successful like other corporate executives. She became par excellent in what she learned and  could add her own contribution to it to the benefit of the company she worked in. Though Marissa calls herself a geek, it is not so as she has interest and involvement in fields like Ballet, Music, fashion designing, travelling and  in many other things.  She is a Member of the Board of directors of National design Museum, New York city Ballet,  San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco  Museum of Modern art and is also one of the Directors of Walmart. She was Glamour Magazine’s  woman of the year 2009.

While Mayer was in school she had had worked at a grocery store and since then she has a soft corner for grocery stores generally. The acceptance of directorship at Walmart must be out of her fond memories of Grocery store days.

 Meyer announced just now that she is 6 month pregnant . Her's was a late marriage.  In her enthusiasm for the work and excitement about the world she could not find time to get married. Mayer married real estate investor Zachary Bogue on December 12, 2009 when she was about 34 years old

As regards her posting at Yahoo, she has not worked anywhere in complete charge of the company and as C E O. Now she is in charge of the entire Yahoo and she has to own the success or failure of the company  It is an uncomfortable situation for a self styled ‘Geek’. But then Marissa was unskilled even to open a computer when she first bought one while she was at Stanford and Just as she later became a professional of it, it might be possible for her to win at Yahoo also.