Marissa Mayer – Spearheading the Search Industry
COUNTRY OF BIRTH
United States
INDUSTRY
TOP ACHIEVEMENTS
Marissa Ann Mayer is the President and CEO of Yahoo! since July 2012. She is also a key spokesperson for Google.
Early Years
Marissa Mayer was born in Wisconsin in the United States in 1975. In her school years she excelled in chemistry, biology, physics and calculus, and took part in many after-school activities. Her first career aspiration was to become a pediatric neurosurgeon. This prompted her to take pre-med classes at Stanford University. However, she later switched to symbolic systems – a degree that combines computer science, linguistics, philosophy and cognitive psychology. Mayer was only a junior when she was invited to teach a symbolic systems class. Her class was popular and she was asked to return. In 1997 Mayer graduated from Stanford with a BS degree, and in 1999 she received an MS degree in computer science. In both degrees Mayer specialized in artificial intelligence.
Career with Google
Although she received 14 other job offers after she graduated, Mayer accepted a position at Google in 1999 when the company was still very young. She joined as the first female engineer and the 20th employee. Mayer soon gained a reputation for being attentive to finer detail and after several promotions and key roles in a variety of departments she became the VP of Google Product Search. During her tenure at Google, she also taught computer programming at Stanford and mentored students at the East Palo Alto Charter School. She received the Forsyth Award and the Centennial Teaching Award for her social contribution.
Career with Yahoo!
In 2012 Mayer was appointed as president and CEO of Yahoo! and also became a board member. She launched an effective employee complaints program and instigated major company policy changes which included stopping employees from telecommuting and increasing the length of maternity leave as well as providing a cash bonus to new parents.
Honors
– Achieved sixth spot in the ‘Fortune’s 40 under 40’ list in 2014 – Named as one of Fortune’s ’50 Most Powerful Women in Business’ for six consecutive years from 2008 until 2013 – Named as one of the ‘Glamour Magazine Women of the Year’ in 2009 – Listed as one of Forbes Magazine’s ‘World’s 100 most Powerful Women for three consecutive years between 2012 and 2014 – Became the first Fortune 500 company CEO featured in Vogue Magazine
Personal Life
In 2009 Mayer was married to Zachary Bogue. The couple have three children, a boy named Macallister and identical twin girls named Sylvana and Marielle. The family lives at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- As a child Mayer was extremely shy.
- Her after-school activities included piano, swimming, curling, ice-skating, ballet, debate and Brownies
- Patented several interface designs and artificial intelligence inventions.
- Created travel recommendation software with natural sounding language for her undergraduate thesis
- Mayer’s net worth as in 2016 is in excess of US$500 million
