Yahoo search comes up with Bartz as CEO

Jan 15 2009 by Iain Laing, The Journal

INTERNET portal Yahoo has named Silicon Valley stalwart Carol Bartz as its new chief executive.

The 60-year-old is a well-respected industry figure who headed business software maker Autodesk for 14 years before becoming its chairman in 2006.

She replaces the company’s co-founder Jerry Yang, who left following lengthy criticism of his stewardship of the company, which has coincided with its share price collapsing to about $12. He had upset investors by turning down a $47.5bn takeover offer from Microsoft last May – worth $33 a share. But Microsoft came back and offered to buy the search part of Yahoo, although a deal was never struck.

Before working at Autodesk, Ms Bartz spent nine years at Sun Microsystems and became the second most senior executive behind the then-CEO, Scott McNealy.

She has been named in Fortune magazine’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and featured on Barron’s list of the World’s 30 Most Respected CEOs.

“She is able to see the essence of things because she doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about how people are going to feel. She is driven by doing the best thing for the business,” said Nilofer Merchant, a former Autodesk manager, now chief executive of technology consultant Rubicon.

While she was running Autodesk, the company’s share price rose by an annual average of nearly 20%.

In November last year, Mr Yang surprised the industry when he said that Microsoft should still buy Yahoo.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all, at the right price, whatever that price is. We’re willing to sell the company,” he told the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

The statement came hours after Google had pulled out of an internet advertising deal with Yahoo amid increasing scrutiny from the US Department of Justice.