Bartz in, Decker out at Yahoo
By Dave Jeyes
Yahoo announced the hiring of CEO Carol Bartz, formerly of Autodesk, in hopes that she can rebuild the floundering online advertiser. Yahoo CFO, Sue Decker, was long thought to be a frontrunner for the spot and has tendered her resignation.
Bartz is best known for the turnaround of software developer Autodesk after joining the company 14 years ago. She grew the company from $300 million in revenue to over $1.5 billion annually during her tenure there.
Autodesk develops software packages for creating engineering schematics, a long cry from the online advertising business. Some wonder whether she has the chops to be successful in such a rapidly changing industry based on her track record.
Prior to taking the top spot at Autodesk, Bartz was the number two executive at Sun Microsystems. While the online advertising model hadn’t developed by then, the Internet had over a million hosts by that time and Sun was at the heart of it all.
While Autodesk might not be an Internet company, her experience leading a software development company might be just what they need. While Yahoo has one of the largest online audiences of any company, its advertising systems are in utter disarray.
Some might argue that Yahoo needs an online visionary or advertising wheeler-dealer. Bartz has experience delivering quality software, something that Yahoo’s team has struggled with in recent years.
Sue Decker was the most visible candidate for the role, which caused many to believe that she was a shoe-in. However, what Yahoo needs here is a fresh perspective and a leader with deep technology experience.
Decker came up through the ranks of Yahoo as a Finance executive and lacks the technical background to run a leading Internet company. She was the CFO and was appointed President of Yahoo to complement Jerry Yang as a deeply technical CEO.
Yang has been unable to turn around Yahoo’s business in his tenure at the top spot. He lost favor after blowing an acquisition bid from rival Microsoft. Jerry Yang will stay on board as COO to help Bartz steer the company back on course.
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