Executive leadership is constantly being studied and criticized in the media, especially when it comes to technology. From reading about other executive’s stories, one can learn from their failures and work towards achieving similar success. There is no doubt that Marissa Mayer, Yahoo!’s recently appointed CEO, is a brilliant executive, being Google’s first female engineer and a contributing factor to Google’s path from a start-up to a major Silicon Valley internet giant. However, her decisions and leadership tactics have been receiving mixed reviews. Since taking the reins at Yahoo! just one year ago, she has begun to lead the company in a whole new direction. According to interviews, it seems that transforming Yahoo! into a media company for the mobile age would be no mean feat for Mayer, “I hope that at some point we are looking at a world where mobile is a majority of our revenue,” she says. Under Mayer’s administration, traffic to mobile applications such as Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Weather, and the Yahoo! News app are up 120, 150, and 55 percent, respectively.
Furthermore, Mayer has directed her hiring policies toward recruiting new executives and engineers to increase the release of innovative products in efforts to garner a greater audience and to attract prospective e-commerce clients through Yahoo! Small Business. Costs to acquire this talent as well as at least 18 startups were close to $200 million. The biggest acquisition was the $1.1 billion purchase of widely popular blogging network, Tumblr. Whether or not these decisions were rational or a huge risk has recently been up for debate. Under particular scrutiny is Mayer’s new no telecommuting policy, seen as an attack on the widely accepted practice of working remotely that has grown so popular in the tech world. Will she lose the respect of her tenured employees used to a virtual employee model? In other words, is it possible that her good intent to enhance creativity through mandating close working quarters could result in a downturn of worker commitment?
This past month’s release of Yahoo!’s second-quarter earnings reveal to onlookers that Marissa’s operational changes have yet to see any major payoffs. With revenue having fallen yet again for Yahoo!, it turns out the new CEO may still have some revamping to do. However, despite the decline in revenue, Yahoo! stock had risen 75 percent. This increase in stock price is driven primarily by the increasing value of the Yahoo!'s ownership position in Alibaba, a dominate player in China’s e-commerce market. With all eyes on Wall Street watching Marissa, we’re all curious to see what new developments the ambitious 38-year-old visionary will bring to Yahoo!. The question is will she be able to turn Yahoo!’s revenue around in the time allotted to her? Only the year ahead will tell.
The effect of this new no telecommuting Yahoo! policy on its upcoming quarterly earnings has been widely up for dispute. We’d like to hear your feedback on Mayer’s recent recall of Yahoo!’s employees to the office. Please answer our poll below to voice your opinion:
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Sources and further reading on Marissa Mayer’s performance: Entrepreneur, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Huffington Post, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Business Insider.
